Review | Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

According to her best friend Frankie, twenty days in Zanzibar Bay is the perfect opportunity to have a summer fling, and if they meet one boy ever day, there's a pretty good chance Anna will find her first summer romance. Anna lightheartedly agrees to the game, but there's something she hasn't told Frankie---she's already had that kind of romance, and it was with Frankie's older brother, Matt, just before his tragic death one year ago.

Thoughts: This book sat on my shelf for a few months, and I knew I really wanted to read it, but just didn't have the time to. I eventually found myself reading books I wasn't enjoying, and decided to pick this one up for a fresh start.

What I wasn't expecting was such a tragic and sad beginning. I knew what the book was about when I first picked it up at the book store, but after a while, I easily forgot. A few pages into it, and excited over Anna and Matt's new romance, I read the inside flap, and realized that this sweet love was going to be short lived. So I dreaded the moment that he would die quietly hoping that it really wouldn't happen that way.

I quickly was able to relate to Anna, her feelings and emotions, the way she felt torn throughout the book, from keeping a secret from a best friend and betraying the only guy she loved when she finds someone new. Ockler's wonderful description for the characters made this book so great to read. And not only were the characters amazingly written, but so were the settings. Everything was detailed perfectly. I could hear the waves, feel the floorboards creak, fell the wind against my skin.

Truly one of the best books I've read, I highly recommend it to YA book lovers and anyone looking for a emotionally honest book.

Favorite Quote:

A lie? It hits me like a sledgehammer, releasing all the hurt and sadness and confusion I've held inside for the last fourteen months. I jump up without speaking and bolt to the shore, unable to hold it any longer.

"How could you leave us like this?" I bawl at the sky, tears spilling into my mouth, ignoring the blurred runners who pass behind me without slowing. Just another drunk little girl, they must think. "Tell her!' I shout. 'Tell her you made me promise! Tell her it's your fault! Tell her it was a lie for you, too! Tell her you loved me!"

Tell me you loved me.

I look out over the ocean, all the way to Japan, waiting for an answer.