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A review by jugglingpup
The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls by Jessica Spotswood
5.0
To see more reviews check out MI Book Reviews.
I got an ARC of this book.
This book started out a miss for me, drastically changed to love real quick, then ended with four chapters of total let down. The book could have easily been four different books instead of one, but it did work well as one.
Des is the oldest of the Garrett girls. She is the one who pretty much has taken on the role of being their mother after their parents died in a car crash. She cooks, cleans, and looks after the store that their mother had opened. She is especially needed lately because their grandmother just had knee surgery. Des is one of the characters that can read as really bland or can be perfect, really just depends on how you can connect to her. She can read as bland because she has no rebellious streak, no desire to get out, and she has no interest in dating. The rebellious streak is the focus of her story. She meets a girl who has purple hair and then all bets are off on what Des will be doing. My favorite aspect of Des is that she is cannonly asexual or aromantic. She has no desire to date, no interest in sex from what she says to others. It is damn rare a character like that exists and even more rare that a character like that is allowed to just be. Spotswood earned so many points with Des.
Bea is the perfect child. She is high achieving, has a steady boyfriend for years that is also high achieving, she got accepted into an amazing college. She has everything figured out. When she gets stressed out, she bakes. Her story reads a lot like Gilmore Girls drama. Her issues is she doesn’t want to be with her boyfriend anymore and isn’t sure about her future anymore. It is pretty fantastic to see such a high achieving character experiencing doubt and being accepted by her family for it. This is the type of character so many AP kids need to read. Bea will resonate so deeply with those kids.
Kat is dramatic and jealous, or is she? She is really into theater. She joins both the local and the high school productions. She is good at what she does. Her story revolves around her trying to win back her ex who cheated on her. She gets together with a bisexual guy who is also into theater. He is trying to get back with his (male) ex who cheated on him. They agree to fake date, but things go wrong. Kat falls for him. In the process she learns that she wasn’t actually jealous, that she was being gaslighted and that the guy who made her feel ridiculous was doing it to cover for the fact he was cheating on her (and has tons of insecurity issues like with his height and sexuality). Kat’s story is so much more complex and beautiful that so many other YA books have allowed. The representation of the bisexual male character was AMAZING. He had eyeliner, but more in a punk way than a femme way. He also actually dates men and women. He doesn’t cheat. He has issues being taken seriously by his gay friends for seeing a woman, he has issues in town being taken seriously because he dates men. His character is so much more than I have seen in bisexual characters in any genre.
Vi is the youngest Garrett sister and an out lesbian. She is always wearing political t-shirts that get her noticed, but she doesn’t seem to notice it. Others see her as brave and proud, she sees herself as awkward and scared. She has a HUGE crush on the waitress next door. She has to figure out how to be friends with someone she has feelings for and respect that not everyone who is queer can be out. It takes some growing pains, but Vi does learn her lessons and find some happiness. Her character is much softer than the others. I would have loved to read a full book about all of the sisters, but Vi’s story would have been one I latched onto in middle and high school because she was openly gay in a small town.
The issues I had with the book were my fear of telling the characters apart, but they are wonderfully different (not what you see on the cover as they are redheads in the book). So that fear eased after five chapters. My other major issue with the last four chapters. They read as too after school special to me. The author jammed a synopsis of what everyone learned and went through in the book into a chapter each. It wasn’t really something I needed or wanted in an ending. The only chapter that really mattered of the last four was Vi’s. That chapter really ended her plot, the others were just rehashing of what I already sat through by reading the book. Vi had the only new plot in it. For how amazing the representation of the characters was, I can ignore a few pages of boring. For how much this story sucked me in, I can easily forgive a few pages of “what?”.
This is a great book full of diversity. This is the sort of book I want to see everywhere.
I got an ARC of this book.
This book started out a miss for me, drastically changed to love real quick, then ended with four chapters of total let down. The book could have easily been four different books instead of one, but it did work well as one.
Des is the oldest of the Garrett girls. She is the one who pretty much has taken on the role of being their mother after their parents died in a car crash. She cooks, cleans, and looks after the store that their mother had opened. She is especially needed lately because their grandmother just had knee surgery. Des is one of the characters that can read as really bland or can be perfect, really just depends on how you can connect to her. She can read as bland because she has no rebellious streak, no desire to get out, and she has no interest in dating. The rebellious streak is the focus of her story. She meets a girl who has purple hair and then all bets are off on what Des will be doing. My favorite aspect of Des is that she is cannonly asexual or aromantic. She has no desire to date, no interest in sex from what she says to others. It is damn rare a character like that exists and even more rare that a character like that is allowed to just be. Spotswood earned so many points with Des.
Bea is the perfect child. She is high achieving, has a steady boyfriend for years that is also high achieving, she got accepted into an amazing college. She has everything figured out. When she gets stressed out, she bakes. Her story reads a lot like Gilmore Girls drama. Her issues is she doesn’t want to be with her boyfriend anymore and isn’t sure about her future anymore. It is pretty fantastic to see such a high achieving character experiencing doubt and being accepted by her family for it. This is the type of character so many AP kids need to read. Bea will resonate so deeply with those kids.
Kat is dramatic and jealous, or is she? She is really into theater. She joins both the local and the high school productions. She is good at what she does. Her story revolves around her trying to win back her ex who cheated on her. She gets together with a bisexual guy who is also into theater. He is trying to get back with his (male) ex who cheated on him. They agree to fake date, but things go wrong. Kat falls for him. In the process she learns that she wasn’t actually jealous, that she was being gaslighted and that the guy who made her feel ridiculous was doing it to cover for the fact he was cheating on her (and has tons of insecurity issues like with his height and sexuality). Kat’s story is so much more complex and beautiful that so many other YA books have allowed. The representation of the bisexual male character was AMAZING. He had eyeliner, but more in a punk way than a femme way. He also actually dates men and women. He doesn’t cheat. He has issues being taken seriously by his gay friends for seeing a woman, he has issues in town being taken seriously because he dates men. His character is so much more than I have seen in bisexual characters in any genre.
Vi is the youngest Garrett sister and an out lesbian. She is always wearing political t-shirts that get her noticed, but she doesn’t seem to notice it. Others see her as brave and proud, she sees herself as awkward and scared. She has a HUGE crush on the waitress next door. She has to figure out how to be friends with someone she has feelings for and respect that not everyone who is queer can be out. It takes some growing pains, but Vi does learn her lessons and find some happiness. Her character is much softer than the others. I would have loved to read a full book about all of the sisters, but Vi’s story would have been one I latched onto in middle and high school because she was openly gay in a small town.
The issues I had with the book were my fear of telling the characters apart, but they are wonderfully different (not what you see on the cover as they are redheads in the book). So that fear eased after five chapters. My other major issue with the last four chapters. They read as too after school special to me. The author jammed a synopsis of what everyone learned and went through in the book into a chapter each. It wasn’t really something I needed or wanted in an ending. The only chapter that really mattered of the last four was Vi’s. That chapter really ended her plot, the others were just rehashing of what I already sat through by reading the book. Vi had the only new plot in it. For how amazing the representation of the characters was, I can ignore a few pages of boring. For how much this story sucked me in, I can easily forgive a few pages of “what?”.
This is a great book full of diversity. This is the sort of book I want to see everywhere.