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itsmeashleygee 's review for:
When We Had Summer
by Jennifer Castle
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.
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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.