That Summer
From Goodreads: For fifteen-year-old Haven, life is changing too quickly. She's nearly six feet tall, her father is getting remarried, and her sister—the always perfect Ashley—is planning a wedding of her own. Haven wishes things could just go back to the way they were. Then an old boyfriend of Ashley's reenters the picture, and through him, Haven sees the past for what it really was, and comes to grips with the future.
My first Sarah Dessen book was The Truth About Forever, which I read in 2009 in the trailer my best friend and I had just moved into together. It was my first time living away from home (I lived at home for college) and I was discovering that YA fiction was comforting.
Since that time, I've read a good chunk of Sarah Dessen's books and while I didn't love all of them...I still enjoyed them. That is, until I read That Summer.
I did not like That Summer. At all. I found the characters kind of deplorable, and the plot was boring. And oh, this happened.
I know I wrote another review where I criticized the author for using the R word. Thankfully in this book it was just the one time, and I'm fairly certain that this was the first (and hopefully) only time I have read this in a Dessen novel but it still took me aback.
So this book was definitely a miss for me. I'm still looking forward to reading more Dessen books but perhaps I'll stick to the ones that are more recent, then ones that are 20 years old.
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