Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - Every Summer After

Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

81 reviews

ashleyvharris's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing 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

4.5

Every Summer After is a salty, warm hug of late summertime nostalgia that makes you feel like a kid again. Full of friendship, first love, and big feeling, this coming-of-age romance follows beautifully flawed characters trying to find their way in the world.

Fortune absolutely nailed the setting. This makes sense given that it was inspired by her childhood spent at the same lake described in the book. Her descriptions were so detailed and transportive, from the warm summer days and the way your skin and hair feels after drying in the Sun post-swim to the crackling anticipation in the air before a summer storm. I always appreciate when an author is able to bring their setting to life in a way that makes it feel like a character in the story.

The setting contributed in part to the overall feeling of nostalgia that lines every page of this book. It made me long for my own childhood summers chasing crabs on the beach at night or catching fireflies at dusk. Fortune captures these feelings so perfectly and in such a bittersweet way.

Fortune also manages to craft wonderful, dynamic characters that I fell in love with. The slow development of Percy and Sam’s romantic relationship as teenagers is so sweet and awkward and heartbreaking all at the same time. Both characters have flaws and insecurities that hold them back, but their hesitations and worries felt true and honest. Oftentimes, “second chance” romances feel unrealistic in how the characters magically reconcile their problems; I appreciate the way Fortune makes their reunion messy, tearful, and complicated. I love that it’s made clear that their relationship after said reunion is not perfect, but includes disagreements and difficulties to overcome. Most of all, I love what Sam says about being better about “cleaning up the mess” together.

My one hang up was the ending. It felt a bit rushed and too open-ended. One more chapter or a longer epilogue to really tie up some loose ends would make this a five star read for me. I would’ve loved to see more of Percy and

Delilah’s

reconciliation. They have such an interesting and evolving friendship throughout the novel that I wanted to get one more scene of them together, but as adults. Similar with Chantal, she is adult Percy’s only real friend and so clearly cares for Percy, but I wanted to get one last peek at how their friendship might’ve deepened after Percy’s return to Barry’s Bay.

Overall, Carley Fortune delivers a beautiful debut that will have me longing for summer the whole year round. She’s managed to capture that bittersweet end-of-summer nostalgia that makes me feel like I’m 17 again.

Content Warnings

soobooksalot's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The perfect summer book exists!
I've seen literally nothing but amazing reviews for Every Summer After, and here's one more.
Canadian author Carley Fortune's debut novel brings up all the emotional nostalgia. Having grown up in southern Ontario, this book transported me back to summers spent at cottages and those muggy, leisurely days and nights.
Every Summer After is the second-chance romance story of Percy and Sam.
Chapters alternate from present-day, to the summers starting when they met, to every summer after (clever!).
These characters are so real and loveable and flawed, you cannot tear yourself away from the story.
I cannot say more other than I absolutely loved this book, and highly recommend!

Content Warnings

midnightrose_reads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

4.75

Every Summer After is a debut second chance romance. In the beginning of the novel Persephone Fraser, who is a magazine editor living in Toronto, gets a call. It’s the older brother of her childhood best friend Sam, Charlie Florek. He calls her to tell her that he and Sam’s mother passed away from cancer and invites her to the funeral. Despite the complicated feelings she has about Barry’s Bay, and how she left it, she agrees to come. Once she gets there she goes to The Tavern, a restaurant that his mother owned, and comes face to face with Sam. The initial meeting is awkward, but they then go for ice cream to catch up. Afterwards they go back to The Tavern for a drink. Percy learns that Sam has a girlfriend and after having one too many drinks, they both get taken home and back to her hotel by said girlfriend. As the funeral gets closer Percy reminces more and more about she and Sam’s shared past, and she tries to build up the courage to tell him the truth about why she broke up with him so long ago

This was really a fascinating and challenging story, where the participants are deeply flawed. Both Percy and Sam have made mistakes in their relationship with each other, that they are trying to make up for. It was a sweet, sexy, and sometimes shocking book I couldn’t put down. It didn’t get a full 5 stars from me because there was a character in here that I thought wasn’t taken to task enough about their decisions. It really, made me dislike that character, and become frustrated that their wasn’t more of a call out over what they did. Other than that it was a really solid read, from an author I’ll definitely be reading more from in the future.

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lujisa's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really liked this book. it was cute, fun, and very summery. would recommend!

but charlie though???? like how could he betray his own brother and take advantage of this girl that trusted him. i loved his character up until this point. it also made it seem like he was waiting the whole time to do it and made his character less sweet and endearing.

Content Warnings

mstlove90's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-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

4.5

This book is a perfect summertime read! Being from Canada myself it was cool to read about a lake house in Canada and about them wanting a house *not in Muskoka* because everyone goes to Muskoka. The book went back and forth between the past and the present and I really liked how the second chance romance was written. Without spoiling anything I will say that this was the first book I’ve read in a while that made me tear up at the ending. It was well written and enjoyable to read. VERY summery which was nice for a June read in the sunshine ☀️

Definitely would suggest this to lovers of romance and second chances!

Content Warnings

amandalorianxo's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Ok so I know I’m definitely someone is on the unpopular opinion train when it comes to this book. My two star rating has nothing to do with the writing or the author herself. For a debut novel, Carley Fortune did a great job at bringing a part of Canada I know virtually nothing about come to life. So that was cool. However, my poor rating is due to the fact that while I have no problems with people being influenced by other works, I can definitely see eerie distinct parallels between PWMOB by Emily Henry in this one. The twist I also thought was such a let down after building up for so long. Plus the lack of communication between Percy, Sam and Charlie was infuriating. I’m also thirty years old (the same age as MC’s) and I wouldn’t want to be involved in this messiness as I found myself reading. College and adult versions of Sam and Percy were not healthy & I wish we didn’t romanticize this because this not the type of relationship I would want to consider as romantic. I know people are not perfect and they are supposed to be flawed but wtf I don’t understand why brothers have to have this weird obsession / rivalry when it comes to a girl not native to the area. Especially when you know your sibling likes them so why mess with it? & the reason why Percy & Delilah don’t speak to one another shocked me too. The incidence that also happened when they were thirteen also made me roll my eyes. I preferred the MC’s when they were teenagers vs their adult counterparts. If we maybe were able to address the unhealthy aspect and were able to go through the healing aspect, everything felt wrapped up too quickly.

Content Warnings

jennastopreading's review against another edition

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emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

When I saw the cover of this one, I knew I had to have it. Do I judge books by their covers? Sort of. But I definitely am inspired to pick books up because of their covers.

This story gave me all the nostalgic feelings of falling in love for the first time. There's something so sweet and romantic to me about finding your way back to the first person that stole your heart, and that's exactly what we get to follow. Percy and Sam met at 13 and spent every summer together for years, growing a friendship that turned into the kind of love that you can only feel when you fall for someone as a teenager.

I loved the setting of this story and the imagery of summers in the sun and working in a restaurant. Sam's character brought a smile to my face almost as much as his brother Charlie made me cringe. Sam was endearing, innocent, and so lovable that my heart wanted to burst at least once a chapter.

The biggest drawback of this story for me came toward the end, and I worry that sharing it will spoil the story. But if you've read it, just know that the "big reveal" was cringe-y for me and really gave me the ick.

All in all, I really enjoyed this quintessential read, and it made me want to hug my husband (my first love).

Content Warnings

kaseybereading's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-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

4.5

Content Warnings

horizonous's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-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

5.0

Content Warnings

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