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innatejames 's review for:

Something Like Summer by Jay Bell
3.0

The story of a complicated gay relationship from high school through adulthood.

This was a good beach read. The writing was a little iffy for me at first. I couldn’t tell if the author was mimicking a teenager’s speech patterns or if the author was still figuring out the character’s voice. After the first few chapters, I stopped rolling my eyes so much, so I think it was the former.

The sex scenes were well written, which any writer can tell you is hard to pull off. Bell had some good twists and turns; he especially made all of the characters heroes and villains at the same time.

I felt like the narrative took a long time with the high school setting and didn’t flesh out the college and post-college settings. The author seemed to want to tell the story of a relationship that changes over time, and I felt it didn’t quite achieve that here. I especially felt too much time was spent developing Allison and her relationship with her dad.

I read that the rest of the series is this story from different POVs, which I’m interested in. Maybe one of them will explain why Allison and her dad are such a big part of this book. Bell’s plotting and improving voice make me want to continue with this series.