Cover Image: When Summer Ends

When Summer Ends

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Member Reviews

This story follows two characters through their summer before their senior year. Olivia and Aiden are two students at the same high school, but really have no connection.

Olivia begins the summer finding out she must leave and move to Arizona. Talk about the worst news ever! Then her boyfriend breaks up with her. Her summer job falls through and to beat it all her mother whom she does not live with wins the lottery. Talk about drama!

Aiden begins the summer suffering from loss of eyesight after being hit in the face with a baseball. He said the team and begins her first summer ever working at his family's lake resort, River Depot.

When these two characters become friends things begin to change. The worst summer ever begins to look up. You will want to pick this one up. It is a great read!

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I received an eARC of this book in exchange for a fair review.

I LOVED this book. After reading “Love Songs and Ther Lies” I was super pumped to see another book by Pennington. Everything about this hit just the right notes for me! The MCs were funny and charming and adorable. The plot was solid and did a great job building the characters and the story. I had a hard time putting it down, and blasted through it. This is going on the reread shelf 100%!!

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This book was very enjoyable summertime read. It follows two main characters, Olivia and Aiden in alternating chapters. Olivia is looking forward to a perfect summer with boyfriend and a perfect internship. Things take a turn though when she’s dumped and has to instead work at a local tourist spot. Aiden is the star of the baseball team but because of an eye disease, he is losing his sight. He quits the team and tries to find meaning after baseball through art. He meets Olivia at work and the two of them will learn a lot about each other and themselves over this drama filled summer.

This book was very enjoyable. I really rooted for both characters and liked seeing them grow and fall in love. It was a little slow in the beginning, but it was a great summer romance read. I liked how the book took the reader through the whole summer. One major problem I had is that there were several storylines that weren’t fleshed out as much as I wanted, such as more involving the mother and the wedding Olivia was suppose to be in. Overall, I enjoyed it and would recommend for romance readers looking for a book with some heartfelt issues.

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After a good beginning this book was a deception. I couldn't even finish it properly and skimmed throught the last twenty per cent.
I really liked the premises, liked the ideas, liked what the characters were about to be. But the more and more I was read, the more baffled I was. The story, if a bit slow, was interesting - or should have been. What was happening?

To be sure I was rather annoyed by the very rapid changes of point of view (not every chapter but every few pages, every paragraph sometimes even). I don't think this to be a good option for writing romance: as the reader usually knows how the story is going to end, romance wise, it's important to keep some tension, some mystery. If you always know what each character is thinking at every moment of the story, the result is rather flat. A bit boring and lacking in emotions.
But still the story was promising and I decided that I could carry on regardless this (in my opinion) narrative flaw.

But the more as read, the more annoyed and bored I became. I had to ponder quite a lot to understand why this story that I appreciate quite a lot at first lost me in the long run, so harshly that I couldn't even force me to read the book to its end.

Then I suddenly realised what the problem was: at three quarter of the book I still hadn't meet the characters. Aiden and Olivia had exactly the same voice. Each time I picked up my Kindle I couldn't say who was speaking, even after a whole page, sometimes. And sadly I never heard a teenager voice, but only the author voice. As if I was reading her notes but not the polished final book.
That's when I decided to stop reading and just skimmed sadly to the end of the book.
Clearly Jessica Pennington is not a writer for me...

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I really loved When Summer Ends. It was a smart, fun and heartwarming contemporary read. Olivia was a lot of fun and I LOVED Aiden. I really enjoyed watching their friendship blossom. My favorite contemporaries are the ones where you root for the couples. When Summer Ends is definitely an example of where you need these two to work out!

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I'm a big fan of Jessica Pennington and loved her last effort, Love Songs & Other Lies. I was not disappointed by When Summer Ends. This was a really sweet story and a quick read. Told in alternating perspectives, Olivia and Aiden are both prepared for the WORST SUMMER EVER. Aiden is slowly losing his vision and has to give up what he loves most, baseball, and most of his friends in the process. Olivia has been dumped by her best friend-turned-boyfriend, Zander, and lost her much anticipated writing internship all in one day. Oh, and her estranged mother is back in town. They're both prepared to slog through this summer, totally miserable, when they're thrown together in a summer job at River Depot, catering to tourists and avoiding the "real world", at least until school starts again in the fall. Slowly and surely, the summer turns from "worst ever" to "best ever". I adored this book and flew through it. But as I said in my last review, Pennington's characters are awful at the big thing crucial to a successful relationship: communication.

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I really enjoyed this book. The book starts with Olivia, a high school junior who is summarily dumped by her longtime boyfriend when he learns she may be moving when summer ends.

Oddly less despondent than she thought, Olivia takes a job at an outdoor river-based amusement center and is immediately partnered with Aiden, an artist who recently quit the baseball team. A former star, Aiden is adjusting to being someone different as he battles with quitting the team.

Together, the two form a bond and wonder what will happen when the summer ends.

I thought this book was realistic and the setting and characters were great. I would recommend this to fans of young adult romance. I thought Olivia was very easy to identify with, and Aiden was realistic and just flawed enough to be an enjoyable love interest. I think the art sub-plot was original as well.

Thanks to Netgalley.com, the author and publisher for my advance reader copy.

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When Summer Ends is an endearing story about young summer love. I love how the author made these characters organic rather than predictable and I also loved how she added flaws to their lives (something that is widely hidden in stories today). All in all, it's a sweet and charming read with interesting characters and a sweet little love story.

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I really enjoyed this YA adult, summer love read. Liked that Olivia was trying to broaden her experiences and her methods of deciding what she would do. Aiden was in a tough situation and I liked that he was not whiny about it. I do wish that we saw more of the team coming to his aid. Did he really have no friends besides his cousin? Could they not tell in practice after knowing him so long that something was wrong? Aiden and Olivia's outings were a plus to the story. They were different from typical summer reads.

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I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

I feel like YA novels don't get the credit that they deserve sometimes. YA novels, especially romance ones, leaves the reader with a happy feeling. The books tend to wrap up nicely and everyone is happy. That is how it was with When Summer Ends. When Summer Ends was my first Jessica Pennington book, but it won't be my last. I enjoyed reading Olivia and Aiden's story. Olivia has her perfect life until it all comes crashing down. Now working at the local tourist spot with Aiden, she will learn that life throws you around and it could lead to something better. Poor Aiden was the star baseball player, until his vision started to get worse. You will learn more about these characters and their hardships. You will love reading about this summer romance between two teenagers. And you will be left with a book that is wrapped up perfectly.

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I already pre-order When Summer Ends by Jessica Pennington for my library because I loved her first book and I have to say this one was a GREAT read also. I just fell in love with Olivia and Aiden and their story which had me hooked from page one. This is an adorable romance that has a lot of heart. You will be rooting for these two till the very last page. I can't wait to read Jessica's next book.

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This is a fun YA novel that'll be great for fans of Sarah Dessen. This is Liv's summer of letting fate open her up to New experiences. She's thrown out of her comfort zone when it comes to her family and personal relationships. Her chemistry with Aiden jumps off the page. The only question is if she'll put herself out there to really risk her heart.

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Mini review:

DNF

Trigger warning: Suffering injuries from a sport. Till the point I read.

I received this E-ARC via Macmillan-Tor/Forge and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I read the authors debut and didn’t enjoy it. Still this one sounded promising and I wanted to give it a go. Unfortunately this author isn’t for me.

I didn’t care for the characters or the story. They seemed alright. But not enough to continue reading

This is a personal thing. Still recommend.

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This is the second book I’ve read by this author and she is now a must read for me. Such an adorable and perfect summer teen love story.

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A sweet summer story to warm your heart. I love the characters and how natural and real they were. Pennington did a good job of making them human. It was a cute story and they clearly had chemistry from the beginning. I would have appreciated a little more setting description but that is really my only complaint. It was an easy read and will be perfect for my library to purchase.

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Received this arc from the author.

A ridiculously sweet, exploratory summer romance. I’m always happy to see relationships, especially in YA books, portrayed in a healthy way, where people are called out on their behaviours. I loved the family dynamic with all of the characters, and the romance between the mains was beautiful to watch as it matured. Better yet, I loved how the characters dealt with the hurdles thrust their way. Losing their sight, dealing with an estranged mother, a flippant boyfriend ... all important things that teens might not feel comfortable explaining to anyone.

My only problem is that the book was too short! I would have loved another hundred pages are so.

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Thank you for letting me review this book.

The couple in this book is adorable. I want to start out by saying that. Aiden and Olivia have chemistry and it shows. The way we get to see them before they even get together from their own points of view made the story that much more believable. The angst, romance, and plot are expertly put together to make a story any romance lover would enjoy.

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