Reviews

That Summer Feeling by Bridget Morrissey

Only show reviews with written explanations

whatsmichireading's review against another edition

emotional hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

4.0

Garland spent her life believing in things like fate and magic, until her husband served her divorce papers on Valentine's Day. A year later and Garland is still trying to figure her life out - so she and her sister end up a Camp Carl Cove, an adult summer sleepaway camp.
There was a lot in this that i really liked. I loved the whole summer camp + queer found family vibe. I think the book does a great job capturing the nostalgia I feel doing summertime activities - that recklessness and adventure of youth. i also loved Garland's journey of queer discovery as an adult and the way it sort of shakes the way you view the world but also puts everything together in a way that makes sense. i also liked the way morrissey wrote the love garland and stevie have for each other - the way it shows up in seeing each other as whole humans and really seeing them and all their pieces. celebrating that in each other. the way those things complement in each other.
Garland is a character with a big heart and big dreams, and sometimes she went on long internal monologues. these weren't always bad but there were maybe too many of them? i know she's an overly sentimental person but i feel like it got kind of repetitive.
I also didn't love the whole bracelet/vision/Mason instigation. I think i would have bought into it more if there'd been another instance of something like that happening? or if it was something that had happened previously that made her remember and put stock in the moment? it just felt like it didn't fit the rest of the book, and then it led to her trying to date Stevie's brother and that just felt so cringe and i dont think it really helped move their story along.
this is a great choice if you're looking for an easy, charming, laying on a float on a lake in the sunshine kind of sapphic romance.