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alloveragain's review against another edition
2.0
3/10
Honestly, I had great expectations when it came to this book and was excited to buy it. I read it some time ago but the disappointment is still here. I'm always feeling uneasy when I'm supposed to give books lower ratings - oh, well.
It stared alright, and I liked it at first, but then as I was reading further I realized that the MCs were really plain and the whole story was so incoherent I had to skim through the book just to be done with it already. I don't like things unfinished so reading it in the end came as a burden and not pleasure.
There still were some moments I really liked but it came off as they were randomly thrown in the book just 'cause.
In the end, it was an okay-ish read but I definitely wouldn't give this much money for it (since I read better books for free on Wattpad).
Honestly, I had great expectations when it came to this book and was excited to buy it. I read it some time ago but the disappointment is still here. I'm always feeling uneasy when I'm supposed to give books lower ratings - oh, well.
It stared alright, and I liked it at first, but then as I was reading further I realized that the MCs were really plain and the whole story was so incoherent I had to skim through the book just to be done with it already. I don't like things unfinished so reading it in the end came as a burden and not pleasure.
There still were some moments I really liked but it came off as they were randomly thrown in the book just 'cause.
In the end, it was an okay-ish read but I definitely wouldn't give this much money for it (since I read better books for free on Wattpad).
kitaabeinaursukoon's review against another edition
3.0
This book took me longer than I expected to read it. It felt dragged on at so many points.
About the book:
The story is about a girl whose mother doesn't accept her as she is. Something happens to her at Camp Mapplewood when she was 12 and after that she gets depressed and is afraid of the wilderness. Her mother ends up sending her back to Camp Mapplewood when she is 17-ish and she starts looking for ways to get out. Would she be able to get out?
Writing style:
The writing style was good and I enjoyed the mindless banter. The characters were well written and developed. Vivian's smugness irked me at times but I liked her character. I just wish that Emma wasn't so hung up over everything and tried to loosen up a bit. Gwen's and Walter's characters were brilliant. Lauren's character definitely added more depth to the story and hers and Emma's encounters were fun to read because something definitely happened when those two were together.
What I liked:
I liked how the story ended because that wasn't what I expected. The cooking scenes of Emma and Julie were also fun to read.
Overall, I enjoyed reading the book but it didn't make any lasting impact on me.
About the book:
The story is about a girl whose mother doesn't accept her as she is. Something happens to her at Camp Mapplewood when she was 12 and after that she gets depressed and is afraid of the wilderness. Her mother ends up sending her back to Camp Mapplewood when she is 17-ish and she starts looking for ways to get out. Would she be able to get out?
Writing style:
The writing style was good and I enjoyed the mindless banter. The characters were well written and developed. Vivian's smugness irked me at times but I liked her character. I just wish that Emma wasn't so hung up over everything and tried to loosen up a bit. Gwen's and Walter's characters were brilliant. Lauren's character definitely added more depth to the story and hers and Emma's encounters were fun to read because something definitely happened when those two were together.
What I liked:
I liked how the story ended because that wasn't what I expected. The cooking scenes of Emma and Julie were also fun to read.
Overall, I enjoyed reading the book but it didn't make any lasting impact on me.
taninwonderland's review against another edition
1.0
DNF at 50%
I did not connect with the characters at all. The romance was unbelievable to me and I felt that every character sounded like a 14 year old.
Rep: mental health (depression, anxiety PTSD)
I did not connect with the characters at all. The romance was unbelievable to me and I felt that every character sounded like a 14 year old.
Rep: mental health (depression, anxiety PTSD)
popthebutterfly's review against another edition
1.0
Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.
Book: Night Owls and Summer Skies
Author: Rebecca Sullivan
Book Series: Standalone
Rating: 1/5 (because I can’t rate it 0/5)
Diversity: Lesbian main character and side characters, but not well done
Recommended For...: I can’t recommend this, it’s extremely problematic
Publication Date: June 30, 2020
Genre: YA Contemporary
Recommended Age: can’t recommend, dnf-ed
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Pages: 288
Synopsis: You have to step off the trail to find your path....
When her mother unceremoniously dumps her at Camp Mapplewood for the summer, Emma Lane’s hopes of repairing their fractured relationship are gone with the wind. Now she’s stuck in the wilderness facing her worst fears. Trees? Terrifying. Spiders? Even worse. And don’t even get Emma started on how she feels about camp activities. But Emma’s got a plan, and she will do anything in her power to get kicked out of camp, from sleeping in to playing practical jokes on her fellow campers. Yet when Emma draws the attention of her illusive and attractive camp counselor Vivian Black, she has to come to terms with the fact that how her summer starts isn’t necessarily how it might end. Will Vivian be the key to unlocking Emma’s fears once and for all?
Review: I had to DNF this read at 40% in. The book wasn’t for me at all. The book’s main character is really unlikeable. She calls herself gay instead of lesbian (which is ok, but it kind of gives off the vibe that being a lesbian isn’t good), she had anxiety and depression but doesn’t show the reader these issues and it isn’t wrote in the story well, and the whole relationship between Emma (our main character) and Vivian really upsets me. Vivian is older than Emma and there’s a power difference with Vivian being a counselor, and then Vivian does some things like kissing Emma and allowing Emma to sleep in her sleeping bag. Honestly, this is akin to professor/student relationships and shouldn’t be tolerated either. I don’t like the “bully is actually interested in the main character” trope because it sets a precedent that violence in a relationship in any form is ok and that’s not ok. Lauren didn’t have anything wrong with her per se but she is a bully and she sexually harasses Emma and Vivian and it’s not a good thing and doesn’t deserve good ending. I think it would have been better if Lauren was given some therapy or was shown to have remorse in the book but it doesn’t come off that way and doesn’t happen. Aside from these problematic issues, the book is also not well written and has some extremely harmful elements to it for people who identify as LGBT+.
Verdict: Not recommending.
Book: Night Owls and Summer Skies
Author: Rebecca Sullivan
Book Series: Standalone
Rating: 1/5 (because I can’t rate it 0/5)
Diversity: Lesbian main character and side characters, but not well done
Recommended For...: I can’t recommend this, it’s extremely problematic
Publication Date: June 30, 2020
Genre: YA Contemporary
Recommended Age: can’t recommend, dnf-ed
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Pages: 288
Synopsis: You have to step off the trail to find your path....
When her mother unceremoniously dumps her at Camp Mapplewood for the summer, Emma Lane’s hopes of repairing their fractured relationship are gone with the wind. Now she’s stuck in the wilderness facing her worst fears. Trees? Terrifying. Spiders? Even worse. And don’t even get Emma started on how she feels about camp activities. But Emma’s got a plan, and she will do anything in her power to get kicked out of camp, from sleeping in to playing practical jokes on her fellow campers. Yet when Emma draws the attention of her illusive and attractive camp counselor Vivian Black, she has to come to terms with the fact that how her summer starts isn’t necessarily how it might end. Will Vivian be the key to unlocking Emma’s fears once and for all?
Review: I had to DNF this read at 40% in. The book wasn’t for me at all. The book’s main character is really unlikeable. She calls herself gay instead of lesbian (which is ok, but it kind of gives off the vibe that being a lesbian isn’t good), she had anxiety and depression but doesn’t show the reader these issues and it isn’t wrote in the story well, and the whole relationship between Emma (our main character) and Vivian really upsets me. Vivian is older than Emma and there’s a power difference with Vivian being a counselor, and then Vivian does some things like kissing Emma and allowing Emma to sleep in her sleeping bag. Honestly, this is akin to professor/student relationships and shouldn’t be tolerated either. I don’t like the “bully is actually interested in the main character” trope because it sets a precedent that violence in a relationship in any form is ok and that’s not ok. Lauren didn’t have anything wrong with her per se but she is a bully and she sexually harasses Emma and Vivian and it’s not a good thing and doesn’t deserve good ending. I think it would have been better if Lauren was given some therapy or was shown to have remorse in the book but it doesn’t come off that way and doesn’t happen. Aside from these problematic issues, the book is also not well written and has some extremely harmful elements to it for people who identify as LGBT+.
Verdict: Not recommending.
sapphicreads's review against another edition
2.0
This pains me because I wanted to like this but I ended up feeling so disconnected from the story that halfway through I could not give you a single opinion on literally anything that happened. I started asking myself questions about if I liked the plot, the writing and the characters and all I could think was ??? which is a major problem. And this major problem wasn't rectified by the end because even right before I started writing a review I could barely think of any concrete opinion except for ??? so I had to sit on it for a while. And then sit some more. Just so that I could have anything to say.
That should be enough to explain that the writing and the plot were completely disconnected and I don't think it was done very well. The writing was okay and the idea had potential but overall it wasn't executed very well. I had a lot of problems with the dialogue and how childish the characters came off, particularly Walter, and because of that I couldn't really connect with them. I didn't hate them but I also didn't like them so it really became a chore to finish.
I also had problems with the basic premise of this plot. Emma is sent to live with her bigoted mother over the summer, which she is dreading, only for her to find out when she gets there that her mother is shipping her off to camp so she can go on a cruise with her new husband. Emma resents this and is terrified because she had a bad experience in the woods that left her with anxiety and PTSD. Because of this, she starts acting out and doing things to get herself kicked out which are ignored by her camp counselor (her love interest in the end) because she thinks the camp will be good for her. She also doesn't want to turn her in because that's what Emma wants her to do and for some reason she doesn't want to give in to that. Vivian, the camp counselor, does not know that Emma is terrified of camping and the woods so she can't necessarily be at fault here but what I don't understand is why Emma doesn't explain to the camp director that her mother forced her to go against her will, that she has a big fear of camping and wants to call her father WHO DOESN'T EVEN KNOW SHE WAS DROPPED OFF AT CAMP AT THIS POINT.
I know a major theme of this book is camp being a place to find who you are and move past your problems but I can't believe that a camp would hold her prisoner and force her to stay against her will. It was more than her just not wanting to be at camp, she had valid reasons for not wanting to be there and a very easy way of getting out of it. If she would've just opened her mouth and demanded she call her father this would have been immediately fixed. Her father doesn't even find out for several WEEKS that she's even at this camp and that her mother ditched her there. So the fact that the first third of the book is spent on Emma doing whatever she can to get kicked out is illogical to me because they can't force her to be there. If she would have gone to the director, explained what was going on and that she wanted to call her father, this would have been handled in two seconds.
And I just do not understand why this completely illogical premise is the basis for the plot when there are ways to work around that. It was kind of annoying and made me hate Emma in the beginning because everything she did came off as childish and frustrating.
Besides this glaring plot hole, I had another major issue with this story. In the author's note Rebecca Sullivan explained she wanted to write characters that represent you and are at the forefront of the plot without being sidelined or killed off. And I respect that. So why she wrote a story with a character who says "Still gay, Mom. I suppose the correct term would be lesbian but gay sits better with me." I don't really understand. Lesbian is often treated as a dirty word and we so rarely get characters that flat out identify as one so this part of the story really didn't sit right with me. There's nothing wrong with wanting to identify as gay, but this is a fictional character and hearing her say she's a lesbian and claiming that label - especially because she recognizes it fits her - would have been important but instead she acts completely indifferent to it. I know that's a minor thing but it just made me feel kind of icky.
The major issue I had was with Lauren. Let's be real, she fits the predatory lesbian stereotype to a T. That's what she's meant to do. She's a bully, she doesn't respect boundaries, she invades personal space and sexually harasses Emma. And then we find out she did the exact same thing to Vivian last year which makes her a repeat offender. The fact that nothing was done about this is gross and doesn't make sense especially considering Vivian is the daughter of the camp director.
Her behavior is not treated as okay and obviously Lauren is supposed to be the villain of the story but it's so unnecessary it drives me insane. What I don't understand is why the author, who admitted she wanted to write a story with good queer rep, would make the villain a character who falls into a toxic lesbian stereotype that is often portrayed in media and that lesbians have been saying for years is gross and predatory when she wanted to give us good reputation that we could see ourselves in. It's actually kind of infuriating. I know that it's said that Lauren has issues at home but those issues at home do not excuse her behavior and I don't know why therapy wasn't immediately suggested considering everyone knows she has issues at home.
Despite those things mentioned above, everything else about the story is just very meh. There's nothing I particularly liked about anything that happened. That mostly stems from how disconnected from everything I was but the reason I was so disconnected from this is because of how it was written.
I don't necessarily want to deter people from reading this because I think there's a lot of people who could enjoy this. It just was not for me and that sucks because I really wanted it to be.
*arc provided to me through netgalley in exchange for an honest review
That should be enough to explain that the writing and the plot were completely disconnected and I don't think it was done very well. The writing was okay and the idea had potential but overall it wasn't executed very well. I had a lot of problems with the dialogue and how childish the characters came off, particularly Walter, and because of that I couldn't really connect with them. I didn't hate them but I also didn't like them so it really became a chore to finish.
I also had problems with the basic premise of this plot. Emma is sent to live with her bigoted mother over the summer, which she is dreading, only for her to find out when she gets there that her mother is shipping her off to camp so she can go on a cruise with her new husband. Emma resents this and is terrified because she had a bad experience in the woods that left her with anxiety and PTSD. Because of this, she starts acting out and doing things to get herself kicked out which are ignored by her camp counselor (her love interest in the end) because she thinks the camp will be good for her. She also doesn't want to turn her in because that's what Emma wants her to do and for some reason she doesn't want to give in to that. Vivian, the camp counselor, does not know that Emma is terrified of camping and the woods so she can't necessarily be at fault here but what I don't understand is why Emma doesn't explain to the camp director that her mother forced her to go against her will, that she has a big fear of camping and wants to call her father WHO DOESN'T EVEN KNOW SHE WAS DROPPED OFF AT CAMP AT THIS POINT.
I know a major theme of this book is camp being a place to find who you are and move past your problems but I can't believe that a camp would hold her prisoner and force her to stay against her will. It was more than her just not wanting to be at camp, she had valid reasons for not wanting to be there and a very easy way of getting out of it. If she would've just opened her mouth and demanded she call her father this would have been immediately fixed. Her father doesn't even find out for several WEEKS that she's even at this camp and that her mother ditched her there. So the fact that the first third of the book is spent on Emma doing whatever she can to get kicked out is illogical to me because they can't force her to be there. If she would have gone to the director, explained what was going on and that she wanted to call her father, this would have been handled in two seconds.
And I just do not understand why this completely illogical premise is the basis for the plot when there are ways to work around that. It was kind of annoying and made me hate Emma in the beginning because everything she did came off as childish and frustrating.
Besides this glaring plot hole, I had another major issue with this story. In the author's note Rebecca Sullivan explained she wanted to write characters that represent you and are at the forefront of the plot without being sidelined or killed off. And I respect that. So why she wrote a story with a character who says "Still gay, Mom. I suppose the correct term would be lesbian but gay sits better with me." I don't really understand. Lesbian is often treated as a dirty word and we so rarely get characters that flat out identify as one so this part of the story really didn't sit right with me. There's nothing wrong with wanting to identify as gay, but this is a fictional character and hearing her say she's a lesbian and claiming that label - especially because she recognizes it fits her - would have been important but instead she acts completely indifferent to it. I know that's a minor thing but it just made me feel kind of icky.
The major issue I had was with Lauren. Let's be real, she fits the predatory lesbian stereotype to a T. That's what she's meant to do. She's a bully, she doesn't respect boundaries, she invades personal space and sexually harasses Emma. And then we find out she did the exact same thing to Vivian last year which makes her a repeat offender. The fact that nothing was done about this is gross and doesn't make sense especially considering Vivian is the daughter of the camp director.
Her behavior is not treated as okay and obviously Lauren is supposed to be the villain of the story but it's so unnecessary it drives me insane. What I don't understand is why the author, who admitted she wanted to write a story with good queer rep, would make the villain a character who falls into a toxic lesbian stereotype that is often portrayed in media and that lesbians have been saying for years is gross and predatory when she wanted to give us good reputation that we could see ourselves in. It's actually kind of infuriating. I know that it's said that Lauren has issues at home but those issues at home do not excuse her behavior and I don't know why therapy wasn't immediately suggested considering everyone knows she has issues at home.
Despite those things mentioned above, everything else about the story is just very meh. There's nothing I particularly liked about anything that happened. That mostly stems from how disconnected from everything I was but the reason I was so disconnected from this is because of how it was written.
I don't necessarily want to deter people from reading this because I think there's a lot of people who could enjoy this. It just was not for me and that sucks because I really wanted it to be.
*arc provided to me through netgalley in exchange for an honest review
lucyp21's review against another edition
3.0
I requested this from NetGalley because I had heard good things, plus that cover and description convinced me to give it a go. Unfortunately I wasn't as pleased with it as I was by this cover.
Emma thinks she is going to spend the summer with her mother repairing their relationship but instead is dumped off at a camp where she had a terrifying experience when she was younger, leading to a phobia of nature. She meets an old friend of hers, make a new friend and even finds another girl she really likes, Vivian Black, one of the counsellors.
This book was such a mixed bag for me. There were parts which I really liked and other parts I didn't but when you put everything together, it wasn't a win for me. It started off in such a promising way. I really liked Emma and her relationship with her father. It was a very sweet, supportive relationship and we saw it more than were told it, and it made all the difference. Same as with her mother - we could tell that she had a fractured relationship with her mum from the get-go and so when her mum left her at the camp, we could see her disappointment about losing this opportunity to help mend her relationship with her mum. We got to see a bad parent, rather than an abusive parent, which was a great contrast with Emma's dad. I feel like people seem to try and classify parents as good or abusive and there is no in between. Emma's mother is distant, insensitive and homophobic - none of which would lead to a child being taken away or monitored by Social Services. But she is definitely a bad parent because that not is how you treat your child. So interesting parental relationships, I'm sorry they sort of dropped off when Emma went to camp.
I also liked some scenes of Emma and Gwen and Emma and Vivian. Not all scenes, especially the ones in the first half of the book (Emma suddenly calling Gwen her best friend when they had barely hung out on page felt very out of the blue), but in the latter half of the book, I really liked seeing these two relationships together and having the platonic and romantic side by side as equally important to Emma. We got a lot of scenes between Emma and Vivian and I believed that they liked each other, which is one of the most important things I look for in a romance.
That said, there were several things which detracted from my enjoyment. First of all, how Emma's phobia was treated. She has a phobia about the outdoors/nature and we see this interfere with her daily life in the first quarter of the book. Then Vivian takes out into the woods for a one night camping trip and Emma realised there was nothing to be afraid of and the phobia never came up again. That is not how phobias work, that isn't even how fears work! Exposure therapy is not 'force someone to spend one night in their fear and everything will be sorted' and it frustrated me that her fear was treated as an easily dealt with obstacle to the romance. It was disappointing, not only because it was made out of be a big part of the book, but also because when a phobia comes up, that is not how I want to see it dealt with.
Another thing I didn't like was how Lauren was shown and treated. The predatory lesbian is a trope I hate, mostly because that was the homophobic trope I came across so much when I was growing up, and just because this is a female/female romance doesn't make it okay for that trope to come up. Yes, I'm not saying that just because a woman fancies other women doesn't make her a good person but this is a YA contemporary romance and they could have had Lauren as a villain without this kind of crap. I really liked Lauren's motivation aboutwanting to get the job because she had to be able to escape from her home for the summer because her parents are abusive/terrible enough that Lauren is trying to avoid them because that made her more of a well-rounded character who I could not like but feel sympathetic towards. I wasn't a huge fan of Lauren's ending because it felt like Mr Black just expected her to be able to change without doing anything to help her or keep an eye on her and then she was just shipped back home to her parents. The adults failed her and she was punished for it.
But I could have handled all of that, if not for the big thing. The writing style - it bored me. I put this book down at 70% and then didn't pick it up again for so long because it just did not flow for me. I was not reading to find out what happened, I didn't particularly care, I was reading to finish it.
The premise was great and I liked parts of it, but so many parts fell short.
3 stars!
Emma thinks she is going to spend the summer with her mother repairing their relationship but instead is dumped off at a camp where she had a terrifying experience when she was younger, leading to a phobia of nature. She meets an old friend of hers, make a new friend and even finds another girl she really likes, Vivian Black, one of the counsellors.
This book was such a mixed bag for me. There were parts which I really liked and other parts I didn't but when you put everything together, it wasn't a win for me. It started off in such a promising way. I really liked Emma and her relationship with her father. It was a very sweet, supportive relationship and we saw it more than were told it, and it made all the difference. Same as with her mother - we could tell that she had a fractured relationship with her mum from the get-go and so when her mum left her at the camp, we could see her disappointment about losing this opportunity to help mend her relationship with her mum. We got to see a bad parent, rather than an abusive parent, which was a great contrast with Emma's dad. I feel like people seem to try and classify parents as good or abusive and there is no in between. Emma's mother is distant, insensitive and homophobic - none of which would lead to a child being taken away or monitored by Social Services. But she is definitely a bad parent because that not is how you treat your child. So interesting parental relationships, I'm sorry they sort of dropped off when Emma went to camp.
I also liked some scenes of Emma and Gwen and Emma and Vivian. Not all scenes, especially the ones in the first half of the book (Emma suddenly calling Gwen her best friend when they had barely hung out on page felt very out of the blue), but in the latter half of the book, I really liked seeing these two relationships together and having the platonic and romantic side by side as equally important to Emma. We got a lot of scenes between Emma and Vivian and I believed that they liked each other, which is one of the most important things I look for in a romance.
That said, there were several things which detracted from my enjoyment. First of all, how Emma's phobia was treated. She has a phobia about the outdoors/nature and we see this interfere with her daily life in the first quarter of the book. Then Vivian takes out into the woods for a one night camping trip and Emma realised there was nothing to be afraid of and the phobia never came up again. That is not how phobias work, that isn't even how fears work! Exposure therapy is not 'force someone to spend one night in their fear and everything will be sorted' and it frustrated me that her fear was treated as an easily dealt with obstacle to the romance. It was disappointing, not only because it was made out of be a big part of the book, but also because when a phobia comes up, that is not how I want to see it dealt with.
Another thing I didn't like was how Lauren was shown and treated. The predatory lesbian is a trope I hate, mostly because that was the homophobic trope I came across so much when I was growing up, and just because this is a female/female romance doesn't make it okay for that trope to come up. Yes, I'm not saying that just because a woman fancies other women doesn't make her a good person but this is a YA contemporary romance and they could have had Lauren as a villain without this kind of crap. I really liked Lauren's motivation about
But I could have handled all of that, if not for the big thing. The writing style - it bored me. I put this book down at 70% and then didn't pick it up again for so long because it just did not flow for me. I was not reading to find out what happened, I didn't particularly care, I was reading to finish it.
The premise was great and I liked parts of it, but so many parts fell short.
3 stars!
vighnesh's review against another edition
1.0
Wow, this was really bad. I really hated the main character. She was so bratty and annoying and the love interest was even more annoying. They were both so annoyed and the love story itself was so bad and I didn't care for it at all. The writing was okay but it felt really empty, I couldn't feel anything from the writing and it was a bit too descriptive.
rylanneburdette's review against another edition
2.0
Trigger warnings for depression, bullying, and a homophobic parent.
When Emma’s mom sends her to summer camp without telling her beforehand, she does everything in her power to make sure she gets kicked out. She ends up seeing a lot of people she used to go to school with before she moved to Boston, but her reunion with them isn’t exactly happy. Her fear of the woods and camping stemmed from a traumatic experience at summer camp years ago, and since then, she has had trouble coping with the outdoors. During her time with the ‘Beaver’ group, she makes a few friends and realizes that summer camp doesn’t have to be all bad. A certain counselor by the name of Vivian Black has caught her eye, and although their summer starts off on less than ideal terms, there seems to be an attraction between the two. Could it turn into something more?
I really wanted to love this book, I did. I love a good LGTBQ+ romance, and the idea of a story based around summer camp was really intriguing to me. I just could not get into the way the story was written; it just felt very bland to me. Much of the book also felt very young, and the thought of sixteen and seventeen year olds making puppets during craft time at camp just didn’t feel very realistic to me. The characters were much more immature and annoying than what their ages were supposed to be, and even the main character, Emma, got on my nerves a lot. She was just rude and snarky for no reason at times, and this bugged me. I didn’t personally feel any chemistry or passion between Emma and Vivian, so when they were suddenly all over each other all of the time, it just felt a bit too rushed to me. I didn’t hate them together, but I also didn’t love them together either. I did like the discussion about mental health, anxiety, and depression, but I do feel like it could have been touched on in a deeper way. Emma’s relationship with her dad was also sweet. Overall though, I just couldn’t get into the story and didn’t feel anything toward any of the characters, except for Gwen! She was sweet.
Thanks to NetGalley and Wattpad Books for providing an ARC of Night Owls and Summer Skies.
When Emma’s mom sends her to summer camp without telling her beforehand, she does everything in her power to make sure she gets kicked out. She ends up seeing a lot of people she used to go to school with before she moved to Boston, but her reunion with them isn’t exactly happy. Her fear of the woods and camping stemmed from a traumatic experience at summer camp years ago, and since then, she has had trouble coping with the outdoors. During her time with the ‘Beaver’ group, she makes a few friends and realizes that summer camp doesn’t have to be all bad. A certain counselor by the name of Vivian Black has caught her eye, and although their summer starts off on less than ideal terms, there seems to be an attraction between the two. Could it turn into something more?
I really wanted to love this book, I did. I love a good LGTBQ+ romance, and the idea of a story based around summer camp was really intriguing to me. I just could not get into the way the story was written; it just felt very bland to me. Much of the book also felt very young, and the thought of sixteen and seventeen year olds making puppets during craft time at camp just didn’t feel very realistic to me. The characters were much more immature and annoying than what their ages were supposed to be, and even the main character, Emma, got on my nerves a lot. She was just rude and snarky for no reason at times, and this bugged me. I didn’t personally feel any chemistry or passion between Emma and Vivian, so when they were suddenly all over each other all of the time, it just felt a bit too rushed to me. I didn’t hate them together, but I also didn’t love them together either. I did like the discussion about mental health, anxiety, and depression, but I do feel like it could have been touched on in a deeper way. Emma’s relationship with her dad was also sweet. Overall though, I just couldn’t get into the story and didn’t feel anything toward any of the characters, except for Gwen! She was sweet.
Thanks to NetGalley and Wattpad Books for providing an ARC of Night Owls and Summer Skies.
bindingthepages's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I received a copy from Wattpad Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
When Emma Lane is stuck spending her last summer dictated by her parent’s custody arrangements, her expectations of being stuck with her homophobic mother go from bad to worse. Not only does it turn out her mom remarried and never said anything, but she’s dropping Emma off at summer camp while she goes on her honeymoon. Angry and hurt, the last thing Emma wants to do is return to the same summer camp that lives on in her nightmares. The only thing left for her to do is unleash hell on her cabinmates so she can get kicked out.
I had a hard time getting into this book because I found Emma to be an extremely unlikable character. I understand that she’s upset that she’s been dropped off at summer camp, but teenage me would’ve avoided her like the plague in and out of summer camp based on her entire personality. That said, I do think that Emma’s an interesting character. While she’s abrasive and only focused on herself, she doesn’t put up with anyone’s crap, and that includes the camp bully, Lauren. Honestly, I think this is the only thing I liked about Emma.
That said, I did love some of the other characters, especially Gwen, Vivian, Walter. They’re such sweet and funny characters that they really are the saving grace of the story. Whatever happens, one of them turns up and made me ready to continue reading. Although, I do think it would’ve been quite interesting if these characters didn’t appear often and we got to see a full showdown occur between Emma and Lauren.
Speaking of the camp bully, Lauren is truly an awful character. I think that she was a pretty realistic bully, but I don’t buy her reason for bullying. It just didn’t make any sense, especially when the main reason she bullied Gwen was because she wanted to become a camp counselor. While the reasons bullies are the way they are rarely make much sense, even this was a bit out there for me to find plausible.
The story itself was okay. I’ve been going back and forth about how I feel about it because on one hand, there’s some good things here. We see Emma dealing with one supportive parent. There’s a lot of talk about mental illness and how that effects people on the daily. We’ve got a bully who eventually finally reaps what she sows rather than getting a slap on the wrist in the end. I also love that Emma basically gets adopted by the family running the camp, providing her more of the support she needs.
However, the issues I have with the story keep pulling me down. Emma gets the same slap on the wrist as Lauren for terrorizing her campmates while trying to get kicked out. Lauren’s reasons for bullying doesn’t make any sense to me. I find it hard to believe next to no one in charge noticed that one of their own, Gwen, was being isolated and bullied by a camper. I love the relationship between Emma and her father, but I find it hard to believe that her dad wouldn’t investigate why he hadn’t heard from her nearly all summer. I know she’s mad when he drops her off at her mom’s place, but he'd try to call or text and know something was up when he got nothing in reply.
All in all, I don’t think it’s bad. If I take a step back and ignore its issues, it’s a cute story about a girl finding herself while being adopted by her found family.
When Emma Lane is stuck spending her last summer dictated by her parent’s custody arrangements, her expectations of being stuck with her homophobic mother go from bad to worse. Not only does it turn out her mom remarried and never said anything, but she’s dropping Emma off at summer camp while she goes on her honeymoon. Angry and hurt, the last thing Emma wants to do is return to the same summer camp that lives on in her nightmares. The only thing left for her to do is unleash hell on her cabinmates so she can get kicked out.
I had a hard time getting into this book because I found Emma to be an extremely unlikable character. I understand that she’s upset that she’s been dropped off at summer camp, but teenage me would’ve avoided her like the plague in and out of summer camp based on her entire personality. That said, I do think that Emma’s an interesting character. While she’s abrasive and only focused on herself, she doesn’t put up with anyone’s crap, and that includes the camp bully, Lauren. Honestly, I think this is the only thing I liked about Emma.
That said, I did love some of the other characters, especially Gwen, Vivian, Walter. They’re such sweet and funny characters that they really are the saving grace of the story. Whatever happens, one of them turns up and made me ready to continue reading. Although, I do think it would’ve been quite interesting if these characters didn’t appear often and we got to see a full showdown occur between Emma and Lauren.
Speaking of the camp bully, Lauren is truly an awful character. I think that she was a pretty realistic bully, but I don’t buy her reason for bullying. It just didn’t make any sense, especially when the main reason she bullied Gwen was because she wanted to become a camp counselor. While the reasons bullies are the way they are rarely make much sense, even this was a bit out there for me to find plausible.
The story itself was okay. I’ve been going back and forth about how I feel about it because on one hand, there’s some good things here. We see Emma dealing with one supportive parent. There’s a lot of talk about mental illness and how that effects people on the daily. We’ve got a bully who eventually finally reaps what she sows rather than getting a slap on the wrist in the end. I also love that Emma basically gets adopted by the family running the camp, providing her more of the support she needs.
However, the issues I have with the story keep pulling me down. Emma gets the same slap on the wrist as Lauren for terrorizing her campmates while trying to get kicked out. Lauren’s reasons for bullying doesn’t make any sense to me. I find it hard to believe next to no one in charge noticed that one of their own, Gwen, was being isolated and bullied by a camper. I love the relationship between Emma and her father, but I find it hard to believe that her dad wouldn’t investigate why he hadn’t heard from her nearly all summer. I know she’s mad when he drops her off at her mom’s place, but he'd try to call or text and know something was up when he got nothing in reply.
All in all, I don’t think it’s bad. If I take a step back and ignore its issues, it’s a cute story about a girl finding herself while being adopted by her found family.
sarah_gb's review against another edition
1.0
1/5 Stars
I really wanted to like this book. Gay camping romance would normally be my jam and I'm not usually harsh about books I read but I'm sorry to say this book was not my cup of tea.
I found the writing style to be very difficult to follow. I felt that the setting description was lacking, and I would never quite know where or in which position the characters were situated, whether they were standing/walking/sitting. All the dialogue felt extremely forced especially between Vivian and Emma.
Emma is the main character and the story is from her perspective. She has very intense 'Not Like Other Girls' vibes that i think feels a bit outdated in 2020. She is into nerd things and the other characters act as if they've never met a girl who liked Pokemon. It also feels like she doesn't even really like Gwen, a girl she claims as her friend. Their friendship feels like its born out of pity.
The main romance between Vivian and Emma left me feeling kind of uncomfortable. The dialogue exchange between the two characters is incredibly annoying and the last thing I wanted was for them to get romantic. The fact that Emma is a camper and Vivian is technically in charge of her also increases my uneasiness with their relationship.
I can see why someone could enjoy this book, the concept is fun and maybe for someone else this could be a light read, but I dreaded every time I sat down to read it. To the point where I was halfway through and had to give up.
Thanks to NetGalley for supplying me with an ARC of this book.
I really wanted to like this book. Gay camping romance would normally be my jam and I'm not usually harsh about books I read but I'm sorry to say this book was not my cup of tea.
I found the writing style to be very difficult to follow. I felt that the setting description was lacking, and I would never quite know where or in which position the characters were situated, whether they were standing/walking/sitting. All the dialogue felt extremely forced especially between Vivian and Emma.
Emma is the main character and the story is from her perspective. She has very intense 'Not Like Other Girls' vibes that i think feels a bit outdated in 2020. She is into nerd things and the other characters act as if they've never met a girl who liked Pokemon. It also feels like she doesn't even really like Gwen, a girl she claims as her friend. Their friendship feels like its born out of pity.
The main romance between Vivian and Emma left me feeling kind of uncomfortable. The dialogue exchange between the two characters is incredibly annoying and the last thing I wanted was for them to get romantic. The fact that Emma is a camper and Vivian is technically in charge of her also increases my uneasiness with their relationship.
I can see why someone could enjoy this book, the concept is fun and maybe for someone else this could be a light read, but I dreaded every time I sat down to read it. To the point where I was halfway through and had to give up.
Thanks to NetGalley for supplying me with an ARC of this book.