Every Summer After
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️\n\n- Second chance romance / it’s always been you\n- Nostalgic summer vibes\n- Now and Then timeline (teens to adults)\n- friendship, growth, forgiveness, and love\n\nIf you’re looking for the perfect summer time read that will give you the warm fuzzies, pull on your heartstrings, and make you feel like a teenager in love. Look no further y’all 👏\n\nAnd it’s a debut 🤯get outta here Carley…you’re too good for us.\n\nBut seriously!! It’s phenomenal and I’m ready for a reread. This is a friends to lovers/second chance romance with an unexpected twist. You will swoon then die and be reincarnated. Okay that’s the review.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'We are only 5 months through the year and I’ve found my favorite read so far: Every Summer After by @carleyfortune!\n\nWhere to start with this incredible romance/ summer lit book? Persephone spent every summer of her childhood at a lake in northern Ontario next to Sam and Charlie Florek. These boys were her best friends until it turns into more with Sam. Things are magical until that one moment when everything goes wrong. Years later, after a family death, she heads back to the lake where her life was change so many years ago.\n\nThis book is absolute perfection. It gets everything right: the feeling of isolation when moving to a new area, childhood friends made in no time, first love, long distance friendships and romance, the death of a parent, even sibling rivalry. I loved the relationship between Sam and Percy; it felt so genuine and real. I had to keep reading to find out more. I needed to know what the big conflict was that changed everyone. It was so well executed!\n\nI can hardly believe this is a debut novel, but I’m going to need more from Carley immediately. I hope she’s working on new stuff! I would also love to shout out that Sam’s family restaurant serves Polish food and I would love to go to their restaurant. I would love to know what made the author decide to have them own a Pierogi restaurant! 🇵🇱\n\n10 stars (5 doesn’t seem enough!)'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'This book was soooo incredible. My heart feels like literal mush. This is a wonderful story about best friends who fall in love as kids. Who hurt each other as they grow up. Who avoided their issues in the past. But who grow up and come back together in an effort to heal. It’s an inspiring romance and I feel so fulfilled with the entire thing. This is an absolute must-read!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': '“Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right."\n\nThere is just something about a second chance romance that will always make me love them and this book delivers! It’s the perfect summer read and made me nostalgic for the innocence of love young and having a friend to spend every sun filled day together. And boy did this story bring the heartache and angst as well!\n\nSam and Percy met the summer they both turned 13, awkward teens needing a friend at the lake, and they quickly fell into the role of becoming each other’s best friend and then so much more as each summer ended over 6 years’ time. Yet their friendship and love ended 12 years ago, making my heart ache with anticipation of discovering what happened all those years ago to break Sam and Percy apart.\n\nTold in past summers and present heartache, I loved watching Percy fall into young love with Sam, with each summer discovering more of themselves and each other. Sam is the kind of boy I could easily imagine falling in love with, caring, funny and attentive, he was the ultimate summer crush. From dock jumping, to skinny dipping to horror moving binging, these two had an undeniable bond and chemistry that made me swoon. And grown-up Sam was even better, through grief and heartache he put aside his own pain to re-kindle a friendship and maybe more with the woman who never let go of his heart. Did the twist crush my heart? Yes, it absolutely did, I’m not sure I’ve fully forgiven them yet, but it is a story that I can’t stop thinking about and I have the best book hangover after finishing.\n\nI listened to this on audiobook and the narrator embodied Percy perfectly, from young awkward girl to a woman dealing with grief and looking for forgiveness. Do yourself a favor and grab this one!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I rarely do reviews, but this book deserves it. I loved this book, highly recommend to anyone who believes or dreams of lasting love. I laughed and cried through the whole book. So glad I saw a review in our local newspaper of this book and decided to read it. Great Summer Read!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-2 review-rating', 'review_body': 'First: This book is a carbon copy of “Love and Other Words” by Christina Lauren. There were so many similarities I was distracted and started writing them down. My notes clocked over 10 major similarities. I am talking big picture, story arc things. I am also talking details down to almost the same twist at the end and the characters even having the same professions in both books. Way too many similarities friends. Yikes.\n.\nSecond: Charlie. The love interest’s brother. His form of joking was not joking at all: it was sexual harassment. Let’s please call it what it was. Persephone was clearly uncomfortable. She and others asked Charlie to stop. He tried to rebrand it as “just teasing” instead of stopping. This made me furious. If someone does not want your lude, sexual comments, you best stop. It went on for YEARS and his harassment was never painted as “wrong” in this book. Just because someone is painted as “hot”, doesn’t make unwanted comments okay.\n.\nThose are the two biggest problems I see with this book. Below is a spoiler that is a personal issue for me, in case you are still trying to decide about this book.\n.\n.\n.\n.\nCheating as a Plot Twist: I am personally never a fan of this story arc. But friends, it cuts so deep when two characters grow up as childhood best friends, who trust each other with their deepest secrets and insecurities, who then fall in love, and then one of them cheats on the other??? It seems so very out of character. A lazy plot twist in my opinion. But to make matters worse, these characters don’t speak for 12 years about what broke them up and then after one conversation they are fine and back together. That’s all it took to repair such deep betrayal? I just can’t.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I don\'t typically dole out 5 star ratings as quickly as I just did for Every Summer After, but this sweet read was exactly what I was looking for when I picked it up and I can\'t find a single complaint after binging this in just over 24 hours.\n.\nAs many before me have said, this premise is very similar to Christina Lauren\'s Love and Other Words (another 5 star romance for me), and that is exactly why I picked up Every Summer After. The coming-of-age, slow-burn, friends-to-lovers romance is one I find endearing, nostalgic, and sweet. Add in that this story has so many fun summer themes; nights at the lake, working at the small-town tavern, horror movies in the basement, soaking in the sun all day long - sigh! This made me actually want to go back to my teenage years and very few things evoke that sort of response ;)!\n.\nThis story is just pure feel-good. I read the last page with a smile on my face and an "awwww" in my mouth - it is definitely one I am going to revisit in the future! Highly rec for a nostalgic summer romance read!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': '“Betrayals don’t cancel each other out. They just hurt more.”\n\n•\n\nRead for a perfect summer read full of modern day Dawson’s Creek vibes, plus high school sweethearts, friends to lovers, and second chance romance feels!\n\n•\n\nI needed a good summertime read so I gave in to the hype and picked up the book it seems like everyone else is reading this summer. I am SO glad that I did. Every Summer After was exactly what I was looking for and more! It was sweet and nostalgic and sad and full of summertime vibes.\n\nThere’s nothing overly original about the storyline, but that’s part of its comfort. It feels like a wistful trip down memory lane to long summer days at the lake with friends and the boy you’re crushing on. It is something I would’ve read as a teenager and absolutely swooned over. I loved that although it’s a modern day story, it felt timeless. Sam and Percy are far from perfect characters, but the messiness kept it real and relatable! There’s drama, there’s cuteness, there’s laughs, and there’s tears. It’s everything I want in a young summer love romance.\n\nI enjoyed Every Summer After from start to finish. It got me through some hot days and I definitely see myself spending future summer days rereading it.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I had heard a lot of buzz about Every Summer After and did not hesitate to download the book. I loved everything about this coming-of-age love story.\n\nPercy and Sam met when they were thirteen in the summer where Percy’s parents had bought a cottage by the lake and where Sam lived all year round. Before the summer was up and Percy had to return to the city, they had formed a close friendship becoming best friends. As each summer passed at the lake their friendship became more when feelings developed between them.\n\nWhen both had graduated high school, their paths took them in opposite directions and the struggle to keep the friendship and love between them suffered when secrets were kept and communication between them haltered.\n\nThey reconnect 10 years later at his mother’s funeral and the connection between them is still strong and undeniable. For them to move forward they have to confront their pasts with the mistakes and misunderstanding that took place.\n\nThe story was beautifully written and told in dual timelines which made the story flow well. A very satisfying and heartfelt read. I loved everything about this story and what a fantastic debut by Carley Fortune. I look forward to reading what she bring us next!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2022', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "I love this book and it needs to be on everyones TBR this summer!\n\nEvery Summer After is an emotional read about a second chance romance between two best friends who were tied together with an invisible string but were torn apart after an unforgivable incident. The story is in alternating timelines: Persephone and Sam's past summers together and now when Percy has to go back for a heartbreaking funeral and face Sam after years of being apart.\n\nGosh, this book. I'm pretty sure Carley Fortune has put me in a slight slump. The romance and friendship Percy and Sam have is *chefs kiss* perfect. The way Fortune wrote them as teenagers to adulthood is realistic and relatable.\n\nI'm in love with these characters, the words, and all the emotions! I highly recommend you read Ever Summer After as soon as possible!\n\n5 stars"}]