Scan barcode
parasolcrafter's review
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
this book is...fine. its not really anything special, but its not bad, either. that being said, i do have quite a bit to say about it.
first things first, the pacing SUCKS. i had quite a hard time figuring out how time was passing (frustrating, considering this book takes place over a 3-month period) and as such it made a lot of the development in relationships feel very rushed :/ at one point, one of the characters mentions him and his friends have only been a part for a week, but the next chapter - without a mention of time passing - a different character says he's been doing his job for weeks, which could only be a typo but for me it made me think a bunch of time has passed without it being mentioned. also, overall it really doesnt feel like 3 months pass during the book; a most, it feels like a month, maybe. like...just not much happens? all the chapters are fairly short and, spread between 4 characters, that doesnt leave a lot room for anything :/ only some of the character development feels deserved, and its more or less only for sal and reese. gabe feels like he only changes because the author says so; a lot of his development seems to happen behind the scenes, which just reads wrong since he changes the most. for the pacing, i wish the book had been structured differently. since there's 4 characters, i think it would have been cool to have each month broken into four chapters, each spanning a week with each character getting their own part. it would have flowed better and made us miss the characters more. really...the pacing makes it all fall flat.
next...i dont like how the relationships worked out, especially with gabe and sal. they ended up feeling like SUCH a hollow friendship because their 'relationship' didnt seem to matter to either of them? idk, they just had such a strange dynamic, with sal especially seeming like nothing matters to him. i also didnt like matt at ALL. hes just SUCH a non-characters; hes literally only there so gabe has someone to like, and it was so annoying they got together in the end. it just didnt make sense to me. and reese and heath...they were fine, but nothing special. overall the characters just fell flat to me. they had so much potential, but it didnt lead to anything, which really is a shame.
further on the characters, theyre all so bland and fairly similar, especially sal and reese. despite the book being told in first person from all the boys, none of them had a distinct voice or personality. their personalities were more or less told to us by the other characters, but it didnt translate very well to their chapters, and it feels like we only know them all on a very surface level. i also dont like the way reese & heath and sal & gabe mirrored each other beat for beat. the chapters where they switch POV's just read as very lazy and i found those 2 chapters annoying and tedious to read; it was essentially the same chapter twice.
i wish this book had just gone a little bit deeper with everything because it was interesting, but it could have been much, much better.
first things first, the pacing SUCKS. i had quite a hard time figuring out how time was passing (frustrating, considering this book takes place over a 3-month period) and as such it made a lot of the development in relationships feel very rushed :/ at one point, one of the characters mentions him and his friends have only been a part for a week, but the next chapter - without a mention of time passing - a different character says he's been doing his job for weeks, which could only be a typo but for me it made me think a bunch of time has passed without it being mentioned. also, overall it really doesnt feel like 3 months pass during the book; a most, it feels like a month, maybe. like...just not much happens? all the chapters are fairly short and, spread between 4 characters, that doesnt leave a lot room for anything :/ only some of the character development feels deserved, and its more or less only for sal and reese. gabe feels like he only changes because the author says so; a lot of his development seems to happen behind the scenes, which just reads wrong since he changes the most. for the pacing, i wish the book had been structured differently. since there's 4 characters, i think it would have been cool to have each month broken into four chapters, each spanning a week with each character getting their own part. it would have flowed better and made us miss the characters more. really...the pacing makes it all fall flat.
next...i dont like how the relationships worked out, especially with gabe and sal. they ended up feeling like SUCH a hollow friendship because their 'relationship' didnt seem to matter to either of them? idk, they just had such a strange dynamic, with sal especially seeming like nothing matters to him. i also didnt like matt at ALL. hes just SUCH a non-characters; hes literally only there so gabe has someone to like, and it was so annoying they got together in the end. it just didnt make sense to me. and reese and heath...they were fine, but nothing special. overall the characters just fell flat to me. they had so much potential, but it didnt lead to anything, which really is a shame.
further on the characters, theyre all so bland and fairly similar, especially sal and reese. despite the book being told in first person from all the boys, none of them had a distinct voice or personality. their personalities were more or less told to us by the other characters, but it didnt translate very well to their chapters, and it feels like we only know them all on a very surface level. i also dont like the way reese & heath and sal & gabe mirrored each other beat for beat. the chapters where they switch POV's just read as very lazy and i found those 2 chapters annoying and tedious to read; it was essentially the same chapter twice.
i wish this book had just gone a little bit deeper with everything because it was interesting, but it could have been much, much better.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing and Homophobia
Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, and Mental illness
Minor: Sexual content
evelynyle_88's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Mental illness, and Homophobia
Moderate: Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, and Bullying
Minor: Grief and Sexual content
luxxltyd's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Alcohol
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders and Mental illness
Minor: Addiction, Sexual content, Infidelity, and Grief
readingelli's review
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content and Homophobia
Minor: Grief
diana_raquel's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
“I feel the past clinging to me like condensation on a glass of water. He’s everywhere around me. He’s my relief, and my protection.”
Look at me!! Reading a book I know nothing about! This was impulse buying. I liked the title and decided to buy it. However, it was a nice surprise. This is a coming-of-age story about 4 friends that decide to follow different paths during the summer before their senior year of high school. It's a story about identity, growing up, and romance. The characters are well-written and well-developed. And the story itself is also well-structured. I also liked that the reader has access to other mediums, such as images of Reese's schedule.
However, I think that the pacing is slow in the beginning. And that affected my reading experience to the point that I thought about DNF'ing the book. After the friends went their separate ways, the story becomes more dynamic but, in the beginning, it was very slow for my liking.
Still, it is a solid reading.
Look at me!! Reading a book I know nothing about! This was impulse buying. I liked the title and decided to buy it. However, it was a nice surprise. This is a coming-of-age story about 4 friends that decide to follow different paths during the summer before their senior year of high school. It's a story about identity, growing up, and romance. The characters are well-written and well-developed. And the story itself is also well-structured. I also liked that the reader has access to other mediums, such as images of Reese's schedule.
However, I think that the pacing is slow in the beginning. And that affected my reading experience to the point that I thought about DNF'ing the book. After the friends went their separate ways, the story becomes more dynamic but, in the beginning, it was very slow for my liking.
Still, it is a solid reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Cursing, and Mental illness
Moderate: Alcohol, Bullying, and Infidelity
Minor: Sexual content
emmaward55's review
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
2.5
This review is a bit of a sad one, because I'm feeling disappointment with this book.
It starts slow and the pacing felt off throughout. Having four point of view characters can be tricky at the best of times, but it was too many narrators in the allotted space. Stamper would have done better either by spending more time with each boy (and giving us a longer book) or cutting one of the POVs. This is a shame to say, because at first all the different stories sound so interesting, but we're never with any character long enough to get anything of substance from them. I know as much about these boys in chapter sixty as I did in chapter ten.
Heath suffered the worse from this, with what felt like barely any chapters to live out his child-of-divorce plot. I can list off five surface-level facts about his life and that's it. I didn't get why Reese had such a thing for him. Reese is also the other character who doesn't seem to undergo any significant transformation during his "character arc", if we can call it that. He decides he likes a slightly different field of art better than his current interest and that was... it? There was no sense of passion from him in his chapters, no inspiration or excitement in his telling of events. He was boring for an artist.
Sal and Gabe fare better overall, with the former confirming that he has no idea what his next step is, and the latter getting a shot of confidence for the first time. Sal's plot was the most interesting. I could have read an entire novel just about Sal's time interning for the Senator.
Honestly I'm losing interest in writing this review now. I don't think it was a bad book, but it had some pretty big structural flaws. The writing isn't detailed, but it's easy to read and fine if you're just looking for some lighthearted queer romance and friendship dynamics.
It starts slow and the pacing felt off throughout. Having four point of view characters can be tricky at the best of times, but it was too many narrators in the allotted space. Stamper would have done better either by spending more time with each boy (and giving us a longer book) or cutting one of the POVs. This is a shame to say, because at first all the different stories sound so interesting, but we're never with any character long enough to get anything of substance from them. I know as much about these boys in chapter sixty as I did in chapter ten.
Heath suffered the worse from this, with what felt like barely any chapters to live out his child-of-divorce plot. I can list off five surface-level facts about his life and that's it. I didn't get why Reese had such a thing for him. Reese is also the other character who doesn't seem to undergo any significant transformation during his "character arc", if we can call it that. He decides he likes a slightly different field of art better than his current interest and that was... it? There was no sense of passion from him in his chapters, no inspiration or excitement in his telling of events. He was boring for an artist.
Sal and Gabe fare better overall, with the former confirming that he has no idea what his next step is, and the latter getting a shot of confidence for the first time. Sal's plot was the most interesting. I could have read an entire novel just about Sal's time interning for the Senator.
Honestly I'm losing interest in writing this review now. I don't think it was a bad book, but it had some pretty big structural flaws. The writing isn't detailed, but it's easy to read and fine if you're just looking for some lighthearted queer romance and friendship dynamics.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Cursing, and Alcohol
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders and Homophobia
Minor: Sexual content
imstephtacular's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, and Alcoholism
Minor: Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Classism, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, and Grief
More...