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A review by vellichorbee
The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls by Jessica Spotswood
5.0
Let me start by saying that whilst I understand the marketing technique in comparing books to other well known books, movies and TV shows, I often find personally that the books can rarely deliver on the expectations such comparisons set up. A lot of people have compared this book to Gilmore Girls and Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants and Little Women. I don't hold Little Women as close to my heart as I'm sure some people do but the other two are absolute favourites of mine and part of my motivation to pick up this book. Honestly this is just a super long-winded way of saying that rather than disappoint me on the Gilmore Girls and Travelling Pants front, this book lived up to and exceeded my expectations. If this book was a TV show or movie, I would rewatch it as many times as I've watched Gilmore Girls and the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.
Now, on to the story itself. The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls is about four sisters, all of whom are named after Shakespearean characters. The family also owns a bookshop named Arden Books, also named by their mother, the ultimate Shakespeare fan. As a lover of Shakespeare myself, I have to say that I loved the little nods to the Bard throughout this book. The girls' parents died when they were all quite young and so the girls have been raised by their grandmother, who has also taken over running the bookshop. When the book opens, the eldest sister Des has been charged with the responsibility of the store and running the household in light of their grandmother having had a bad fall. Just to reassure you, their grandmother is fine she just is unable to get around much as she heals from the accident.
In most books with multiple points of view, I end up with one or two favourites and find myself waiting for their chapters and finding some of the others just something to slough through. I think that writing multiple characters that are likeable and relatable and interesting is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Even in some of my all-time favourite books that have multiple characters, I sometimes find myself skimming certain chapters if they are from the perspective of characters I don't mind but also don't love. In The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls, however, Jessica Spotswood has created four wonderful and engaging characters that really gave this story heart. I loved Kat's chapters just as much as I loved Des's. Even when I was impatient to find out what happened next in Vi's romance, I was just as happy to read about Bea's struggles to live up to impossible expectations.
Every Garret girl deserves your love and attention in this book and even though I had my favourites in terms of their character arcs and how relatable I found them personally, I fell in love with every single one of them. I read this book almost all in one go, sitting outside in the sunshine and even though it is winter in my part of the world at the moment, I can highly recommend this as a cute and heartfelt summer read. This book makes you feel like anything can happen, like your own summer romance and life-changing event is just around the corner and that you should go to the beach and eat ice-cream while you wait for it to arrive. It's a story about friendship and love and things changing but also the things that will always stay the same.
One of my favourite things about Gilmore Girls is that watching it feels like a warm hug, with characters and a town that are so familiar and comforting. This book has the same small-town feeling and focus on family and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I would come back to this book and re-read it anytime I felt like getting that comforting feeling from Gilmore Girls from a book format instead.
I also loved that this book had a cute f/f romance and that Spotswood name dropped f/f YA books and ships from TV shows through Vi's character. I love that Vi was such an avid reader and lover of f/f romance in books and that she got to have her very own summer romance just like the ones she read about in Nina LaCour books. Because isn't that just the ultimate dream for all of us lesbian and bi girls out there?
If I could give this book 6 or 10 or 50 stars out of five I would but I'll just have to settle for telling you reading this review to pick up a copy and fall in love with it as much as I did. Happy reading!
Now, on to the story itself. The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls is about four sisters, all of whom are named after Shakespearean characters. The family also owns a bookshop named Arden Books, also named by their mother, the ultimate Shakespeare fan. As a lover of Shakespeare myself, I have to say that I loved the little nods to the Bard throughout this book. The girls' parents died when they were all quite young and so the girls have been raised by their grandmother, who has also taken over running the bookshop. When the book opens, the eldest sister Des has been charged with the responsibility of the store and running the household in light of their grandmother having had a bad fall. Just to reassure you, their grandmother is fine she just is unable to get around much as she heals from the accident.
In most books with multiple points of view, I end up with one or two favourites and find myself waiting for their chapters and finding some of the others just something to slough through. I think that writing multiple characters that are likeable and relatable and interesting is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Even in some of my all-time favourite books that have multiple characters, I sometimes find myself skimming certain chapters if they are from the perspective of characters I don't mind but also don't love. In The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls, however, Jessica Spotswood has created four wonderful and engaging characters that really gave this story heart. I loved Kat's chapters just as much as I loved Des's. Even when I was impatient to find out what happened next in Vi's romance, I was just as happy to read about Bea's struggles to live up to impossible expectations.
Every Garret girl deserves your love and attention in this book and even though I had my favourites in terms of their character arcs and how relatable I found them personally, I fell in love with every single one of them. I read this book almost all in one go, sitting outside in the sunshine and even though it is winter in my part of the world at the moment, I can highly recommend this as a cute and heartfelt summer read. This book makes you feel like anything can happen, like your own summer romance and life-changing event is just around the corner and that you should go to the beach and eat ice-cream while you wait for it to arrive. It's a story about friendship and love and things changing but also the things that will always stay the same.
One of my favourite things about Gilmore Girls is that watching it feels like a warm hug, with characters and a town that are so familiar and comforting. This book has the same small-town feeling and focus on family and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I would come back to this book and re-read it anytime I felt like getting that comforting feeling from Gilmore Girls from a book format instead.
I also loved that this book had a cute f/f romance and that Spotswood name dropped f/f YA books and ships from TV shows through Vi's character. I love that Vi was such an avid reader and lover of f/f romance in books and that she got to have her very own summer romance just like the ones she read about in Nina LaCour books. Because isn't that just the ultimate dream for all of us lesbian and bi girls out there?
If I could give this book 6 or 10 or 50 stars out of five I would but I'll just have to settle for telling you reading this review to pick up a copy and fall in love with it as much as I did. Happy reading!