E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus'



*Spoilers in Strengths and Weaknesses.*



Micah and her father move six miles across town, and Micah is conflicted. Things ended poorly with her friends at her old school, so she's eager to make a fresh start, but she also misses her old home and doesn't make friends easily. Luckily, there are other kids her age in the neighborhood, and she can walk to the nearby pool. She's struggling with knowing who she wants to be as she enters seventh grade, but figures that she has the summer to outline her new plans. Twins Luke and Megan are both friendly, but it's hard to hang out with both of them. Luke and the other boys in the neighborhood are willing to accept Micah as one of them, with her food stained t shirts and awesome sports skills. Megan, on the other hand, is more interested in boys as romantic objects, and she makes Micah feel unkempt and young. It doesn't help that Micah really does want to be more like Megan and her friends, and that she is starting to have some romantic feelings for boys. In addition to all of the typical tween angst, Micah has to deal with the death of her mother under very unfortunate circumstances.

Strengths: This has Judy Blume levels of pubescent worries, and so is great for readers of Barbara Dee's work or those who enjoy "embarrassing moment" articles in... well, tweens don't read magazines anymore, but they still seem to have a well developed sense of schadenfreude. Micah's struggles are all too recognizable; I certainly always made plans to completely redo myself, and they never worked out. The pool, the summer setting, the girl and boy drama, and the positive depiction of a girl who is good at sports are all very appealing. I even appreciated that Micah was dealing with the death of her mother.
Weaknesses: I wish that Micah had a bit more support in dealing with not only her mother's death, but also the aftermath and the effects on her life. She mentions going to counseling at school for a while, but clearly there was a lot more support that she needed, due to the fact that (highlight for spoiler)her mother committed suicide and she was told that it was an accident.
What I really think: I don't think I will purchase this, because the cover and the content are so drastically at odds. It's a pretty heavy duty read, but the cover makes it look very fun.

Thank you publishers and Net galley for an ARC of this book.


A wonderful Middle grade novel about a girl named Micah who finds herself alone in a new neighbourhood before starting school. Will she be able to have a new start or will her past moves itself I to the neighborhood as well?

This was such a fun read. I loved the characters and the story line!!

A middle age story that is funny, thoughtful, speaks a lot about a teenage growing up, deals with first crushes, new friendships, sports, self-discovery, and love. But also it has its dark topics covered as well like bullying, betrayals, suicide and its impact, self doubt, etc.

I feel this book is a great page turner, it was light and easy read and observed various points, topics and themes and the depiction of what a teenage goes through, specially a teenage girl during her puberty, her reactions, her perspectives, her fear and shame and how she has to overcome it all. It was just a lovely story that reminds one of how tough their own teenage years were, how scary and new everything was, and how one tried to fit in so bad in their own different ways.

This book was provided to me by the publisher through net galley in exchange for an honest review.

Oh being 12 is hard. Finding yourself and not letting others dictate who you are is so difficult and Micah had a summer to try and find who she was after some tragic things happened to her. I really enjoyed this book, the characters were well written and coming from a mother of a current 12 year old girl its about dead on with bullies, mean girls, and just trying to be yourself through it all.

I was provided with an electronic ARC through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Wow, this book was way deeper than I expected given the title, synopsis, and cover. It was a powerful story about friendship, forgiving yourself and others, family, and discovering who you are. Micah has been through a lot in her 12 years and she is now dealing with a new neighborhood and the goal of making new friends before summer ends. She slowly becomes one of the guys, while secretly wanting to be one of the girls. There is humor throughout, with the antics of the guys. Please note that there is bullying and talk of suicide. I would hand this to someone looking for a character-driven middle grade novel that is deep but has humor,

I found this book to be a cute read. Micah was very relatable to me. A cute story about wanting to grow up but to also do it at your own pace and that it's okay to be who you are no matter what has happened in the past.

A nice story about that awkward summer where you're not quite sure what you'll be like at the end of it.

This was a cute and enjoyable read. Take everything I say about this book with a grain of salt, because, as a 18 year old, I'm not the target demographic but this book did leave me with some issues. Mostly this book is about our main character struggling with growing up. She wants to physically grow up but is still a kid at heart and doesn't understand her previous friends wanting to grow out of that. I really liked the sentiment of "it's okay to stay a kid for a long time" but the way it villianized the girls who didn't have that same mentallity kind of bothered me. I'm an 18 year old reading middle grade. I'm obviously still a kid at heart but most people my age are not and that's okay. If you're twelve and you want to start caring about dating and make-up and dressing nicely rather than comfortable that's okay as well. This book just villainized that. All the characters that were like that either learned by the end that it's better to stay a kid at heart or were seen as an arche-type mean girl and bully. Like mentioned before the main character has a huge focus on growing up in the physical sense and here lies my other problem. I just feel like this book spend an uncomfortable amount of time talking about the physicals developments of the main character and her critizing her own looks. This is one of those topics were you have to take my opinion with a grain of salt, because it's been a little while since I was 12 and maybe this is relatble to 12 year old girls. My last real problem I had with this book is the discussion around the main character's mom dying of suicide. I didn't like how it was handled. It just felt like it was added for some sort of shock facotr and wasn't well resolved at all. It served it's purpose for the plot and than it went away. I get that the author wanted to include it, because it is great topic to discuss with middle graders but just the way it was done sat wrong with me. It also just didn't fit into the story. Before this was revealed the whole story was very light hearted and fun but this element just dragged the mood way down. But only for like a chapter or three because than it served it's purpose and we went back to the light hearted fun. It felt mismatched. In conclusion, even though I had some problems with this book I had a great time reading it. It's definetly a fun summer read.

Thank you, NetGalley and the author for a preview of this eBook.


Micah McKinney and the Boys of Summer by Nina Chapman captures perfectly what it feels to be 12 years old where you feel awkward with your own body and when you start seeing the opposite gender in a new light. I finished this book in one sitting because you feel pulled along with Micah as she goes through her first crush, losing a mother and many other issues in her own way. I would 100% recommend this book to all the middle school kids out there.

I am really looking forward to Nina Chapman's next book.

Micah is heading into a new school year and she is determined to be a new person (and have boobs, round ones). When she moves into a new neighborhood and falls into friendship with a group of boys, Micah isn't quite sure what to expect. But she quickly falls into a routine of soccer training, days at the pool, and skateboarding around the neighborhood. But Micah is still trying to figure out how to navigate being a girl, and her dad isn't the best of help. Dealing with loss, grief, and growing up, this book is definitely a must read.

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I genuinely could not stop smiling while reading this book (except for the part where I was tearing up) This book was so light and well written, but also equally unafraid of going into darker themes. I laughed remembering my first period experience. I cheered for Micah as she started to stand up for herself. I loved the first crushes and first kisses. This was just a genuinely fun read that I could not put down!

A book that convinces in the general story of a young girl wishing for breasts and a certain level of social experience before starting the next school up, but one that also fails to convince slightly in the detail. The pool staying-underwater champ would know not to just dive in and go at it without oxygenating first, for one. That kind of naive lack of accuracy is not good, whatever the age of the target audience. And I wish books like this didn't completely embarrass the heroine, when we could perfectly get by with her being slightly ditzy, or just plain wrong about what a milksop she is. Here I felt we had a real character for good sections, only for her to have to trip up mid-celebratory dance in the clothes store changing room, or sail through the air and land in a paddling pool when thrust on a skateboard for the first time. Lay it on more thinly, for cryin' out loud – this kind of slapstick does not go anywhere to helping us think this is a real person, and puts us off gunning for her. That said, the boy population of these pages is filled with token shittiness, including the skateboard incident itself, so perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree labelled 'realism'.

Beyond that, however, a lot also is allowed to work. The mystery of why her previous friendships failed is stretched out, but the reason why her and her father are the sole members of the family is much more affectingly done. When it boils down to seemingly-unlovable-girl-being-fought-over-by-various-friends-including-two-nice-boys, it really can provide the entertainment we deserve from this kind of read. Finally, it can hopefully talk a lot to young women about another of the core themes – with this girl getting mixed signals of approval (boys liking her for her boyishness, boys seemingly liking or not liking her as a girlfriend) she is forced to realise the only approval needed is self-approval. If only the pratfalls hadn't been so crass before then. Three and a half stars from me – probably six from the target audience, mind.

A cute story that follows the life Micah Mckinney and her adventures in her new neighborhood where's she just moved in with her dad. The book reads like her personal diary as Micah counts down to the day she is due to start seventh grade and she's got 81 days to re-create herself before that.

An entertaining read with relatable characters. Would recommend to children and young adults.

Many thanks to Nina Chapman, NetGalley, and Capstone Editions for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was received as an ARC from Capstone in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

Everyone knows the struggles of moving to a new place and not only trying to fit in but understand the complications in life such as being a girl and transforming into a woman. With a scene in the community pool turns into a nightmare of adolescence Micah tries to piece the puzzle together and understand the complications of womanhood having it all make sense in her mind. In the meantime, she makes a new friend and might even have a boyfriend all at 12 years old. A book that is fit for the young adult and even some parents to learn what it is like growing up adolescent.

We will consider adding this title to our JFiction collection at the library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

This is the sort of story that sneaks up on you, and sucks you in. It begins with a girl moving to a new home, and meeting the local boys. From there, we go to the mystery of why the girl, Micah, is in the new home, and how <em>something</em> happened in her old home, having to do with the death of her mother, soccer, and mean girls.

And her plan.

Micah's plan is to reinvent her self at her new school.

Her voice is right for the story. The other kids are too.

I really wanted everything to turn out right for Micah and for the mean-girls to get caught being mean.

The author said she started it just writing the scene where she gets a weggie in her bathing suit, and is embarrassed, but her students asked her to keep going, and so she did, and what a fun time we got out of that.

Great middle-grade book about friendship and mean girls, and nice boys, and all the fun of summer.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.