| Title | : | When We Had Summer |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1368081401 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781368081405 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 336 |
| Publication | : | First published April 25, 2023 |
Every year since they can remember, Daniella, her cousin Carly, and their friends Penny and Lainie (the #SummerSisters) have spent their summers together at the Jersey Shore in the town of Ocean Park Heights, creating and completing a summer bucket list. With Carly as the mastermind, the list ranges from the silly to the practically impossible, and it’s the highlight of the summer for these four best friends.
But this summer, everything is going to be different, because last winter, Carly—their leader, their glue, their everything—passed away.
As the remaining #SummerSisters try to wrap their heads around their best friend’s death, life seems determined to throw more curveballs at them, threatening to split them up for good. Daniella is accepted at a prestigious music academy in New York City, Lainie learns her family is moving out of Ocean Park Heights, and Penny is distracted by a new job and a new boyfriend.
Then Daniella uncovers a treasure like no other—a bucket list for this summer tucked away in Carly’s signature seashell purse. And just like that, the #SummerSisters have an opportunity to unite and fulfill Carly’s last adventure for them all. But will the list be enough to hold them together for one final summer?
When We Had Summer Reviews
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DNF @ pg. 60
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A feel-good YA summer read about female friendship perfect for fans of The sisterhood of the traveling pants books. I really enjoyed each of the girls and seeing their growth over the summer as they try to complete bucket lists each year they make as a group while dealing with grief over the loss of one of their members. Good on audio too narrated by Stacey Gonzales with really excellent therapy and mental health rep. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest review!
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Carly, Daniella, Lainie, and Penny are best friends that spend their summers together in the seaside town of Ocean Park Heights on the Jersey Shore. They are the #SummerSisters and have a tradition of completing a bucket list every summer, usually created by Carly. However, this summer, the summer of 9th grade, everything changes for the summer sisters. Daniella is going to a special music academy in NYC, Lainie finds out her family is moving, Penny finds that she might be moving at a faster pace than her friends and Carlie passes suddenly before the summer. Separated and struggling, Daniella, Lainie and Penny try to complete this summer's bucket list that Carly left behind.
When We Had Summer is a heartfelt coming of age young adult story. Focused on change, loss and growing up, each of the girls face a different challenge this summer while trying to carry on the bucket list tradition and honor Carly's memory. It was interesting seeing how the girls faced their different challenges and how they coped. Even as an adult it was easy to relate to the challenges the girls were facing and the impacts on their lives, breaking down everything they thought they were and having to rebuild. It was also nice to see the girls get the help they needed from their peers and adults around them. I loved when the summer sisters were able to come together along with the others who had helped them to memorialize Carly in a meaningful way.
This book was received for free in return for an honest review. -
This was a cute quick summer read. It describes middle age summer so well. Love, loss, friendship, and all the life changes that seem so huge at 15. I wish I had a group of summer sisters when i was growing up. A sweet coming of age summer book for sure
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4.5 stars ⭐️
this was such a cute book!! it definitely got me in the summer mood ☀️ -
4 best friends have a summer bucket list tradition, but as they enter high school everything is changing. They’re getting first jobs and first boyfriends, going to new schools and moving to new addresses. And the center of their group, the one that holds them all together, died before summer even started. The girls aren’t sure how summer will even look this year, or if their friendship can survive these changes.
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If there’s one thing this book gets right, it’s coping with the unexpected death of the center of your friend group. How hard mourning that person is fills these pages, but its not just the person you mourn, it’s the way that person’s loss changes other relationships in your life. What traditions do you carry on? If you let some go, does it mean you’re moving on from that person? How do you cope with the way your other friendships are changed when you’re all just trying to cope with the loss of someone so central to your lives? Can you talk about that person without bringing everybody down? How do you make sure you don’t forget them without being consumed by grief? And what do you do when you wish you could share your life now with them?
Those are big questions that this book asks, and on top of this heavy content the book also grapples with divorce, anxiety, and aging family members, on top of all the normal YA fodder like friend and sibling drama, boyfriends, and rival teen angst. This isn’t a light book, but it doesn’t step into overwhelming darkness either. The beachy, summery setting keeps it readable, with an ultimately happy—and hopeful—resolution. -
I LOVE IT SO MUCHHHHH!!!
Like my heart is about to burst with happiness!!!
this may have become one of my favorite books!!! I cannot believe what I just read!! The ending had me holding back my tears!! It was so emotional!!
I’m so happy they restored their friendship, even after everything they had to go thru!
It was such an happy ending!! EVERYTHING was resolved!!! You almost can’t find that in books these days!
Highly recommend this for summer read!! It’s a definite page turner!!
I honestly need more of Lainie, Penny and Danielle!! Like.. lainie litteraly was about to move away forever!, and now she can stay with Danielle for the next summer AND work at Dulcies for the summer!!! Don’t tell that there is a better happy ending in the history of books then this!!
I could rant about this book for a while but I realize I used an excessive amount of exclamation marks 😂 JUST READ IT!! DONT HESITATE!!!! YOU WONT REGRET IT!!!!! -
Final 3.5
Overall, it was a cute story but felt bland and pacing was a little off. Reminds me a lot of sisterhood of the traveling pants but not quite as good.
Themes of friendship and grief are well done and felt authentic to the age of the girls.
Overall, it might be a nice summer read, but i think bc of the weird pacing, it's 1 that you need to finish quickly. -
Well okay
It was good? I guess? The summer-y-ness was nice. But it was kinda boring and felt like it was trying too hard… -
It took me a little while to start this book. When I first read the premise, I thought oh this sounds good. And then it occurred to me that it might actually be very sad. And I struggle with sad books on a good day. But I finally read it and it really wasn’t that sad, all things considered. I cried a couple times at the end of the book only and they were happy tears.
The Summer Sisters have spent every summer together since they were little girls. You can tell that Carly brought them all together, I think each of the girls was actually closest to Carly.
The girls had epic, fun summers filled with new adventures and old traditions.
Every year they made a bucket list of activities they wanted to do together that summer.
No one could have ever expected that last summer was Carly’s very last summer.
After Carly passed away, the remaining Summer Sisters are back together. But things are different of course and their lives are changing.
Summer Sister Daniella, Carly’s cousin, decides to spend most of the summer in NYC at a music program. While staying with Caryl’s parents, Daniella finds the list Carly started for this summer.
The girls decide to complete the list. Some things will have to be done separately since Daniella won’t be there till much later in the summer.
That leaves Penny and Lainey with just each other in their New Jersey beach spot.
The girls haven’t actually spent much time together just the two of them. And it’s harder because Lainey’s grandmother is selling her bakery and her house in town. Lainey worries that this will be her last summer at the beach with her friends.
And Penny decides to get a part time job since Lainey is so busy.
The girls have to grow separately and together to honor Carly’s memory and maintain their own friendship without Carly.
My only complaint of this book is that Lainey’s grandmother wasn’t sympathetic enough to Lainey. I feel like she very much gave off the attitude of “yes your life is hard but everyone’s life is hard, get over it”. Come on Grandma, your grand daughter is 14 years old and dealing with the death of her best friend. Be more sympathetic please.
I thought this was a beautiful story with a lot of very touching moments. It wasn’t too sad for me to enjoy and I’m glad I stopped putting it on the back burner. -
I really enjoyed this book. Losing a best friend as a teen would be devastating, and the author did a great job of showing how three different girls handled their grief after the unexpected death of one of their group. The Summer Bucket List added a fun element to a tough topic. I appreciated that there was a lack of swearing, drugs and alcohol, and more mature elements. I would not hesitate to give this to an older middle school girl.
This book gave me the same feel-good vibes of
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. :) -
wowowowowoowwowowowowowo this book was so so so good. it was a perfect coming of age and it felt real. i’m glad i read it when i did because it took place with a group of friends who were going into the summer before freshman year. and i could take some of the stuff i read and relate it to then or even now. it was just so perfect, it was written so beautifully and ngl i shed a few tears towards the end. anywayyyss GO READ IT
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Three best friends are facing an unfamiliar summer without their fourth best friend, navigating grief and a lot of unexpected change. 31 swears, no 'f' - most were simply 'hell'.
This was a wonderful coming-of-age story that I truly enjoyed. I was especially pleased with how authentic the girls felt as young teenagers. There's a dearth of YA fiction being published with 14-year-old main characters and When We Had Summer hit all the best notes for that age range. Daniella, Lainie, and Penny felt like real freshman - somewhat hesitant, on the cusp of really starting to explore their identity, still young but not quite kids anymore. They were all working through difficult changes in their lives in addition to the sustained thread of grief for their lost friend - adolescent bodies that were developing in ways that they weren't entirely comfortable with, the scary and exciting possibility of romance, learning how to work through anxiety, finding your 'people', and more. All three had realistic flaws but they all still genuinely came back to each other as friends and it was beautiful.
I also appreciated the inclusion of a nonbinary secondary character that was casually introduced and accepted without fanfare or hesitation; they were simply another character and that sort of entirely normal representation is wonderful. The only point of friction I have is the very obvious Instagram substitute 'FotoSlam'. I understand why authors do this sort of thing - better to create an imaginary social media platform than to date yourself when the one you pick is wrong or becomes uncool - but it still tugs me a little bit out of the story.
Recommended as an excellent purchase to help fill the gap between middle grade fiction and YA that seems to be getting older and older every year; and also recommended as a great choice for young teens and older tweens looking for realistic YA.
Digital ARC received courtesy of NetGalley. -
Basically a modern retelling of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in one summer with a bucket list, but not as good….cute, modern, I wonder if it will have the longevity e use of the very modern references in the book.
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4.5 Stars
Review coming soon -
Book Title: When We Had Summer
Author: Jennifer Castle
Narrator: Stacy Gonzales
Publisher: Disney Audiobooks
Genre: YA/Teen
Pub Date: April 25, 2023
My Rating: 3.5 rounded up
Pages: 336
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants meets 13 Little Blue Envelopes in this new young adult novel about a tight-knit, daring, and eclectic group of friends.
Yes I was drawn to this story as the blurb got my attention. I read
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants several years ago and loved it. Also read “13 Little Blue Envelopes”.
In this story four best friends Carly, Daniella, Lainie, and Penny who are basically very different but are the same in the summer. For many years they have been spending their summers together in the seaside town of Ocean Park Heights on the Jersey Shore.
They call themselves “The Summer Sisters’ and have a summer tradition of completing a ‘SSBL’ (Summer Sisters Bucket List).However this is the summer before entering high school and everything is changing. Daniella has been accepted and will be going to a special music academy in NYC,
Lainie’s family is moving as her grandparents sold the bakery, and
Penny is not sure what high school will bring.
They are all mourning and struggling with the sudden death of Carly; none of them were aware she had a heart problem.
They decide that since this just may be their last summer together they will try to complete the summer's bucket list that Carly left behind.
Although the story if different from “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” It is a story of friends growing physically, emotionally and mentally. They’re getting first jobs and first boyfriends, going to new schools
I did enjoy this story~ I rated it 3.5 as I thought it was better than a 3 Star – good but not 4 Star- Great.
However, since I loved the ended I rounded up!
Want to thank NetGalley and Disney Audiobooks for granted me this early Audiobook.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for April 25, 2023 -
I really did not like this book. I hated most of the characters except for Daniella and I just felt like the chracters were too juvenile for their age group. I don't know who I hated more, Lanie or Penny. Lanie for being so mean and rude to Sasha even though she was going through some stuff or Penny for having a life outside of the summer sisters now that it was just her and Lanie in town and Lanie was working all the time. Penny was annoying because she was just clueless as to so much and how she treated Jamie was so annoying I hated it. I loved Daniella and how she found another group of friends and found a sister in Zoe. She was the only character that I felt was decent in the book. Her struggling with panic attacks and not telling her friends that Carly was dead actually felt organic and real to me.
I think my reason for not liking this book so much was a may have not been the target audience. I think this book is better suited for middle school age kids and I am not that. -
This book was definitely a rollercoaster. When the Summer Sisters lose one of their own, the remaining three girls have to figure out how to go on without their best friend and what to do about the newest bucket list she left behind.
Each character deals with grief in different ways. We see this not just within the Summer Sisters, but also within the family members. Therapy was also a big aspect of the book for one character and it was wonderful to see how accepted that was.
Thank you to NetGally and Disney Hyperion for the eARC! -
This was a very heartfelt read, I liked it. But, there were some characters that really got on my nerves! Like Jamie at first, I could see how Penny was pretty mad at her (she did redeem herself at the end though). Also, Penny wasn’t being a very good friend to Lanie, that kind of annoyed me. And lastly, Dex. He was nice at the beginning, but in the middle of the book he started to think less of Penny’s feelings. In the end, he was fine. Overall, this was an emotional journey with a very fun, summer-y and beach-y theme. This book also gives off total Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants vibes.
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4/5; no, this is not a jenny han book :) this book was a multi-diverse-perspective book which was very fun for me to read haha... i didn't really "connect" with some of the characters; i feel like (imo) the characters were good, but didn't have enough character depth/development (this varied from character to character; and this book should have been soooo much longer) overall, it was much better than i expected (and an extra note: this book was fun b/c it was a "teen" book which actually had younger teens in it [13-14] without being a preteen book :) mature 12+ [physicalbookhehe]
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The writing style in this book was very middle school, which you would think is obvious because it’s a YA novel, but when I say very middle school, I mean that you could convince me it was written by a middle schooler. It gets 3 stars because it was cute and sweet, but the use of words like “bruh” and “slay” was veeeeryyy ridiculous + it was extremely predictable. I also just don’t love the forced-seeming inclusion of LGBTQ characters. It feels like the author threw in every stereotype possible, which comes across more distasteful than inclusive
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Loved the plot. I became frustrated that the friends lacked communication hardcore, but let it go since everyone grieves differently. I didn’t like how all the supporting characters weren’t as supportive of the Summer Sisters and then when they were it was cheesy over the top supportive. The ending was okay, but I feel like the book as a whole was missing something. I probably wouldn’t recommend this one, but it was an easy read!
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I absolutely loved this book! Highly recommended!!! Didn’t take me that long, but probably because I couldn’t set it down! One of my favs for sure.
The only thing I didn’t like that much was the language, only occasional which was good, but still not what I like. Also, there was a gay person mentioned, and I am strongly against that so if you are too just keep that in mind.
Overall amazing book!🤩 -
A sweet story of close friends whose friendships change after one member of their group dies. The growth of each girl is handled well, but I was never fully invested in the two who remained at the beach together. I would've rather had all three working on the bucket list together.
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It was like the sisterhood of traveling pants, but better? The characters were so real and likable, the way they experienced love and loss and change, it was all so perfect. Perfect quick read for a girlie in the summer, would definitely recommend
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Good "clean" contemporary YA book that explores grief, friendship, and moving on.
