I really wanted to like this story but maybe I just wasn't the intended audience. As a cis girl I like reading lgbt+ novels but this one just felt too insta teen love story romance. The first few pages of the book introduced the premise of this book, what if the guy you were crushing on just came up to you and told you i like you i've been waiting for 2 years to talk to you and get to know you. But then it lost me, as much as I wanted to like Marco, stalking the guy you're crushing on, your secret place is a spot where you can sit and look at his window. Not to mention how much he did from Elliot and controlled the relationship. I kept waiting for this book to turn around the premise and maybe show how slightly toxic this insta-lust-story was but it didn't it just kept ramping it up to talks about marriage and sperm donors. I understand this is a series or at least there's one more book, but I'm not sure I'm going to be checking it out. I'm disappointed because I really wanted to like this book.

It always disappoints me when I cannot finish a book, an ARC especially. I want to love every book I read obviously but unfortunately that’s never going to happen. This book just had a rough narration and I could hardly stand Elliot’s voice. I feel like I am too old for this book. It had an immature feel to it that I couldn’t get past and I read books with characters in this same age group at times so I know it was the story and not the age of the characters per se.

First off this wasn’t my normal adult romance book that I would of chosen. But it was a good book. There is a character that I am confused about but seeing that there is another book after this has me excited to read it. Honestly I was leery about would I be able to finish the book but all that changed when I got to around chapter 5. The characters are so in love that it makes you said that they have to keep it a secret. I really hope that readers give this book a shoot. It’s an awesome romance novel and yes some people may not be ready for a book like this neither was I at first but let’s be honest a love story is still a love story no matter who is in love with who. Awesome read hope people read it.

This is one of those books that I don’t feel qualified to review. I am not the intended audience. As a queer woman, I often enjoy gay & m/m romance but I think this book is written for gay men. I think that’s why I couldn’t appreciate a lot of the style/plot choices. The book features an instalove romance, which I don’t generally like. The narrator also spends a lot of on pop culture references and random tangents, and so the pacing is very up and down. But if you’re looking for a very instrospective, very unique romance then this might be for you.

I’m convinced there is an audience for everything. I just wasn’t it for My Summer of Love.

Where do I even begin?

I hated the first chapter. I’ll give it this: it perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the book — the first ten pages are boring; the narrator is all over the place with needless details and comes across as a scatterhead who lacks empathy; and everything falls effortlessly in place.

The chapter starts with protagonist and narrator Elliot, a.k.a. Cassiel Elliot Dohaney (yes, you read Cassiel right, as in the angel which inspired the show Supernatural’s character Castiel), describing a usual day at work — one that bores him out so basdly it bores the reader in the process. I believe it was meant to be comical, yet what I gathered from the narrator’s endless stream of thoughts is that he completely lacks of empathy towards others people’s grief and that he cannot concentrate for the life of him. There seemed no rhyme no reason to all the details he mentioned on and on over ten pages, except to delay the time character Marco Sforza would appear… which I can’t help wonder why as the characters swiftly declare their love to each other. Part of the appeal, in a romance, is to see the characters fall in love; this never happens in MSoL.

Worse: Marco is a stalker who’s followed and spied on Elliot for two whole years; he knows his habits, his schedule and he’s planned out their life; he is bossy and he does not hesitate to teach Elliot a lesson through rough sex when he disagrees or to coerce him into dubious consent when he hesitates. I kept on hoping the narrator would wake up and see how toxic this is; but that, too, never happens.

The truth is: by the end of the first chapter, I knew not to expect much from this story except, perhaps, the basic: some sort of plot. I’m afraid it had none. The book seems an excuse to write sex and live some type of toxic, fantasy love.

If I were to sum up my thoughts on MSoL, I’d say it’s a case of instalove with barely any conflict, giving off bad fanfic vibes with a narrator that prefers to tell the reader what he wants them know rather than play the story out… not to mention the too many pop culture references that will make it age real fast.

I do not recommend.

I really wanted to like this book. I loved the description and the first 20 or so pages. Interesting premise. What would it be like if someone showed up out of the blue telling you that they had loved you for two years? But, sadly I couldn't stick with this book. I stopped reading about 1/3 of the way in.

The intensity of the relationship between the two main characters was too over-the-top for me, unrealistic and made me feel quite uncomfortable. It certainly wasn't written as a healthy relationship - in spite of the constant references to them being "normal teenage boys" who just expected to have sex all the time. I found it difficult to believe that two teenage boys would be discussing marriage, a house and children the first week they were together.

I stopped reading about the time that they began having a discussion about "Supernatural" and one of the characters from the show. It pulled me out of the story completely and I got the feeling I was reading fanfiction rather than a novel! Sorry!

I believe this had promise to be unique and different. But instead, I got a very rushed and unrealistic love story. This is a story that just was not meant for me.