Andie has her whole summer planned out. She’ll be leaving her three best friends to attend a summer program at Johns Hopkins for aspiring medical students. However, when some bad news comes out about her father’s campaign, the summer she had planned fades away before her eyes. Now she’s stuck walking dogs and trying to get used to having her father home so much. When she meets Clark, she thinks she’ll be able to do her usual three week relationship and then have the rest of the summer to hookup with other guys. She doesn’t expect that Clark will actually want to get to know her and she doesn’t expect that she might actually want to get to know him too.
I have loved every single Morgan Matson book and this one was no exception. She always creates a wonderful cast of characters for us to fall in love with and I also appreciate when she weaves in the family element as well. For the first time (that I can remember at least), Matson also includes cameos of past characters. We see Emily a couple of times as well as Dawn, Frank, and the other friend…I think his name was Collins? We also get to see Taylor and her siblings (and their dog). I love when authors do that. It’s like a fun little Easter Egg for their readers.
Out of all of Matson’s main characters I think I like Andie the least–that’s not to say that I don’t like her, but I didn’t feel like I could connect with her as well. She makes some decisions throughout the book that I just don’t agree with or understand all the way, but she’s still realistic as a character. I did love Andie’s group of friends though. They all felt like individuals (even Toby and Bri) and I especially loved Palmer. She seems like the best best friend you get ever ask for! I didn’t like that some drama happens to the group (I like it better when friend groups can just be friends and the drama happens in other aspects of the plot). But in the end, I could see how the evolution of this group might be more realistic than other portrayals.
Andie’s relationship with her dad was also really well-done I thought. I appreciated that her dad was trying, you know? A lot of times YA parents don’t really acknowledge any faults in their parenting until the end of the book (and that’s the book’s resolution). I liked that Andie’s dad understood pretty quickly that he hadn’t been doing so great in the parenting arena and took steps to remedy it right away. I really enjoyed watching as Andie and her dad rebuilt the friendship that they used to have when her mom was still alive.
This book has a few very fun quirks. This is the first book I’ve read where a character is a dog walker so that was kind of interesting to learn about. It’s a lot more complicated than one might think and I thought it was fun that each dog obviously had a personality as well. I also loved that Toby could only text using emojis. It was fun to try to interpret what she was saying and I found myself texting my husband just using emojis at times too (not really on purpose, but kinda). The scavenger hunt was also really fun. Honestly, I wished that the scavenger hunt was longer (maybe a multi-day thing) and took up more of the book, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with the plot, so I get why it doesn’t. Also that might be too reminiscent of Since You’ve Been Gone.
Overall, I thought this was a really great summer book. If you love Matson’s other books, you’ll definitely like this one as well.
Overall Rating: 4
Language: Moderate
Violence: None
Smoking/Drinking: Moderate
Sexual Content: Moderate
What's She Reading? 