Christina June has a way with emotions and making her readers feel them strongly, whether it be anger, grief, joy, pride, and fear. In short, she makes her characters--and her readers--feel alive.
After a year at boarding school following being arrested thanks to her no-good rotten shoplifting boyfriend (For more details, see "It Started With Goodbye" by Christina June), Ashlyn is finally coming home and, more importantly, hopes to stay home. And then she finds out--through Facebook--that her father is going to prison, her mother's going to rehab for depression, and she's being shipped out to the middle of nowhere to live with family she hasn't seen in years and work at a summer retreat camp. Ashlyn has spent her whole life with her father dictating what she does, even when he is only in her head. Can she find her way home?
Ashlyn is a strong character who realizes that she is strong throughout the book as she takes charge of her own life for the first time. She makes friends, makes tough decisions, and is going through so many difficult things that she takes in stride. She has her cousin, Hannah, and Hannah's cute friend Baxter to help her get through the summer, as well as a lot of love from her BFF Tatum. I will say that there wasn't as much impact on the romance in this book compared to "It Started With Goodbye" and "Everywhere You Want to Be", but I liked the slow friendship to not-quite lovers that Ashlyn had with her love interest. (It most definitely begs for another companion book where we get a cameo with these characters!)
This is a wonderful book, and leave you rooting for Ashlyn from beginning to end.