Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC!

I'm not really sure about this one. I found reading this one to be quite a drag and long-winded. I didn't find that I empathized with the main character enough and the concept was a bit meh for my liking. It may just be a taste issue but I could have gone without reading this book (apologies!!).

I find the relationship between Emma and Vivian quite weird and it felt forced. Many times I had to remind myself that Emma wasn't 18 and actually she reads quite a lot younger, almost 15, and that the relationship seemed a bit inappropriate. I also didn't like the dialogue between Vivian and Emma - it seemed forced and I honestly just skimmed through what they said.

I didn't like the camp setting. I'm not an outdoors person that may be why.

All in all, this book wasn't for me but perhaps it is for someone else!

After reading the synopsis for this one, I was really excited. A F/F romance set at a camp and the cover is gorgeous. I thought it would have everything I wanted.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. I ended up DNFing this one about 20% into the book.
Night Owls and Summer Skies tells the story of Emma who is forced to spend the summer with her near-absent mother as part of her parents' custody agreement. When she arrives at her mother's house, she finds out that she has gotten married and will be going on her honeymoon all while Emma is forced to go to a summer camp. The last time Emma went to summer camp, she was traumatized by the other members.
The first thing that really jumped out to me was the dialogue. It was stilted and awkward. I don't know a single teenager that would take the way they do in this book. A lot of times the wording seemed inside-out and I would have to re-read a couple times to understand the sentence. Also, all of the characters talked the same and there weren't enough speaker tags, so I never knew who was talking.
Every scene that I read felt melodramatic and all the characters felt a little childish. Everything always seemed to escalate from nothing to really intense out of nowhere. I didn't find myself rooting for anybody in this story. Emma is extremely unlikable and came off as whiny and just plain rude sometimes.
When I read the synopsis, I (maybe naively) thought that Emma's crush on her camp counselor was going to be unrequited, so I didn't mind that going in. But it seems like that relationship is central to the story and I'm not a fan of that power dynamic. I already know I will be unable to root for them when their first interaction is Vivian telling her that she's basically being held at this camp against her will and then locks her in a shed. There's nothing romantic about that one.
I really wanted to like this one, so I'm disappointed that I wasn't even able to get all the way through it.

I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this book. The book's description was beautiful and intriguing. However, it was a complete mess. I couldn't relate to any of the characters. I found them to be extremely annoying and every time I tried to force my way through the story, I found myself growing more irritated with Emma. Actually, I didn't like any of the characters. Not a single one.

While I appreciate the opportunity to read this, it just wasn't for me. .

i'm sorry—this book is a complete disaster. i wish so badly it weren't. finishing it was a chore for innumerable reasons, and i literally cannot describe every single one of them, but i'll do my best.

night owls and summer skies opens with our main character, emma lane, going to stay with her toxic, bigoted mother for the summer; but things quickly go awry when it's revealed emma will be going to camp mapplewood while her mother and brand-new husband go on their honeymoon. she's determined to get out, but gets caught up in a whirlwind of drama, as well as a budding romance with vivian black, a counselor.

honestly, i don't even know where to start. the writing is unpolished, a little dry, but it's certainly not awful. and conceptually, this had a lot of potential.

my first issue showed up 3% of the way in. maybe this upset me because it struck me in a personal way—but emma says, "still gay, mom. i suppose the correct term would be lesbian, but gay kind of sits better with me." look, people can identify with whatever label they want. that's fine. i don't have an issue with it. but this is a character, not a real person, and it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth to see this kind of rhetoric where "lesbian" is treated as this—this word to avoid, this word that someone wouldn't want to identify with even after acknowledging that that's what they are. it took me years to be able to use that word proudly. it hurts that the only time it's actually said in this book is to say a more nonspecific term "sits better" with the main character. there was an opportunity here to actually use a label that's often treated as dirty or a fetish, to bring to light a community—my community—rich with love and passion and pain and history but often cast aside. that opportunity was very much not taken. i'm at least glad that emma is a character who's secure in her sexuality.

then there's the other stuff that stinks. lauren is the primary antagonist, and she's a bully, but she's also a predator. like, consistently pushing boundaries, violating consent, being a general creep. while i don't think her identity is ever specifically discussed, i really—and i mean really—do not think it was necessary to write what effectively ended up being a predatory lesbian narrative. she bullies emma because she's romantically interested in her. realizing that this was the road this book decided to go down was what made me realize this was not the representation i wanted of people like me. lauren sexually harasses emma—and vivian—incessantly. obviously this behavior isn't celebrated, as lauren is the villain, but the way it's dealt with is so... illogical to me?

but then again, pretty much everything about this plot, and this camp, and these characters, is illogical to me.

there's some weird stuff about teaching consent in there that lauren weaponizes, of course. but then we're told that lauren did this kind of stuff in the past—with no repercussions? why was she not banned from returning to camp after the first, frankly unacceptable, infraction? it seems like everyone, including the owner of the camp (vivian's father), is aware of lauren's predatory behavior. but literally nothing is done about it. i don't understand? the reasoning seems to be that mr. black wants to give "lost kids" the chance to find themselves or whatever, and that lauren's parents contribute to the reputation of the camp, but why would this be at the expense of everyone else's wellbeing, including his OWN DAUGHTER(S)? again, this isn't something small: there is a specific gravity to sexual harassment versus, say, emma's actions (sneaking out, trying to get her phone back, whatever). and emma is forced to stay in the same cabin as her?

lauren needs therapy!!!!!!! so badly!!!!!!!! and given what we know about her background that should have been an immediate suggestion? i think it's difficult for me to reconcile the fact that this is a story that's supposed to destigmatize and speak frankly about mental health while completely denying an entire character of the possibility of rehabilitation and accountability... sexual harassment is unacceptable!!!!!! but she clearly needs help!!!!!!!!!!!! vivian literally speaks to compulsive behaviors and obsessions? but then at the end she's just shipped off back with her abusive parents and that's supposed to be, what, a fulfilling ending? what is the point?

and i guess that in particular kind of speaks to the one-dimensional nature of every character in this book. if i had to come up with a comparison it's very much akin to a disney channel original in that respect—good characters are good, bad characters are bad, and while the so-called "bad" characters are occasionally sympathetic (take jessie, for instance) this sympathy exists not to aid in their development or growth, but to serve the greater purpose of moralizing to the reader (for example, through jessie and emma we learn that you can forgive, but not forget).

the only thing consistent about emma's character is that she's deeply unlikeable. she's supposed to be socially inept, i think, but the author only occasionally remembers this, and in incredibly weird ways—like the fact that emma is unsure as to whether people talk to other people about their pets. she acts like she's approximately ten years old for the majority of the book, but especially in the beginning. she has depression and anxiety but i honestly didn't see any actual evidence of this; like, she tells her dad she's "taking her anti-depressants," and "having an off day," but we're never actually shown this? she's supposed to have a multitude of phobias connecting back to one traumatic event (and i don't want to discount trauma—but frankly this is hard to believe) but, like, she seems to be perfectly ok with running around camp completely on her own in the dark, even though the entire place is a source of panic for her—she says that she's "scared of this entire experience" but maybe i misunderstood? and then of course it's kind of implied that vivian somehow... fixes one of these? i don't know. much of the discussion around mental health focused less on how it's actually experienced and lived and more on just... mentioning it? or thinking about it sometimes?

vivian, of course, never worked for me. i think she's supposed to be alluring and mysterious but she's not. there's an obvious power differential between her, as a counselor, and emma, and while this didn't particularly bother me as something problematic it was just... another one of those things that didn't make sense? why would a counselor ever make a camper sleep in the same sleeping bag as them and does that not also constitute sexual harassment? why would a counselor ever allow a camper to kiss them (even on the cheek) as a thank you? why would a counselor go through a camper's phone? or allow a camper to sleep in their cabin? why would a counselor take another camper on a search through the woods for another camper (and in what world would a camper not be punished for stealing and drinking alcohol underage at camp)? why would a counselor deliberately keep a camper who's acting out at camp? why would that camper's parent(s) not be notified? anyway—aside from all of this, vivian and emma are just not a good couple. they're both weird and boring and i don't understand why they'd ever be attracted to each other, and i don't understand how everyone seems to be ok with it.

then there's the dad, who's supposed to be one of the good guys, but i don't understand why it's pretty much completely unquestioned that he's putting his gay daughter in harm's way by making her spend extended time with her awful, homophobic parent? that's not what good parents do!!! that's not what a good father does! and i just don't understand how NOBODY CONTACTED HIM. why on earth would she be forced to stay at this camp? she has a way out! i've never been to a summer camp where i was effectively held prisoner because some random counselor wanted to "help me"!!!!! this is so implausible!!!!

my last issue is with how generally stilted and painfully awkward and just ridiculous everything is. vivian and gwen speak in this weird, jarringly formal way, and i don't really get why. there are passages of dialogue that are clearly supposed to be funny but instead are absolutely nonsensical. emma gets defensive over mike wazowski??? as if mike wazowski is the pinnacle of pop culture? walter, vivian and gwen's brother, is just... obsessed with pokemon? somehow emma is the only person who knows about pokemon? we spend the whole time hearing about these deep, dark, private letters emma wrote, and they're pretty central to the conflict, but we never actually know what's IN these letters, so why the hell should i care about them? emma has this random misogynistic streak where she calls lauren and co "bitches," and then says, "you think a guy shoving another into a locker is awful but girls are so much worse" (ch. 11). genuinely what? and then there's gwen just, like, as a character—she's supposed to be eccentric i think, but instead she's just a complete caricature. there's this weird scene where gwen tells them that emma's birthday is coming up and walter is just so shocked by the existence of birthdays that he throws his entire slice of pizza across the room (ch. 17). it's like every scene in this book was spat out by an algorithm approximating how real humans act. or like an AI trying to write comedy.

ok, so i went in pretty hard on this one. i'm just sad because i really liked it in theory, but instead i got... this. it needs a lot of work. 1 star.

*arc provided by netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

Okay, so when I saw this book was placed in a summer camp, and it was a fun LGBTQ+ romance between 2 girls, I just click the button, and wait for the publisher's approval. And I had great expectations,

I was not wrong, it was such a fast, cute, adorable read. Just the perfect romance for summer. The writing style is very simple, and it's perfect because it's a light read, and you really don't need a poetic writing style for that kind of book.

I love the relation between Emma and Gwen, and I love the reprensation of a young lesbian girl, and praise for her father who doesn't care about her sexuality but just want her to be happy. It's also talk about mental health, perfect for young adult.

Just read it if you want to spend a good, fun time reading a book.

This one was rough. The story is a bit all over the place. This book switches from scene to scene in the same paragraph with 0 explenation and it was so dang confusing. The characters were so underexplained that it was hard to understand their motivations, which again made everything so dang confusing. Also the reason for the mc's bad mental health was a bit quesionable to me. Like I know trauma is caused by different things and everyone reacts to trauma differently but this girl really had really bad PTSD that ruined her social interactions for years on end because she was left up in a three for a night? And then she gets over it because she was in camp for like three days? I don't know, it just felt very unrealistic and messy to me. Add to that that the story is pretty generic and this whole book just left me a bit bored. This book also talked about some important topics but it always felt second to the romance and whenever it was discussed it felt so fucking preachy and cringey rather than anything else.

For me Night Owls and Summer Skies was a really entertaining young adult book. When I requested the book from NetGalley I knew only the main plot which just awoke my interest. Then I saw some negative reviews so I decided I need to read this book. Honestly, I did enjoy reading it. The whole venue gave me the summer camp vibe: the activities, the dramas, the gossips and the fights.

I could relate to Emma’s the ‘world is against me’ feeling as most of us had gone through it in our teenager years. Then she felt left alone as her mom just dropped her in a camp on her last summer as a girl not a legally adult woman. I liked how the story developed and we got to know more and more people. And even that we know Vivian is a counsellor and she should have behave as a responsible adult, I didn’t mind her personality as reading the plot I already knew she won’t follow the rules as a counsellor would be.

I recommend this book to young adults, who are searching themselves, people who just want to read a laid back gay novel and those who don’t mind reading a fiction and not getting offended by the actions which shouldn’t be this way.

• Title: Night Owls and Summer Skies
• Author: Rebecca Sullivan
• Publisher: wattpad books
• ISBN: 9781989365250
• Edition: E-Book
• Publication date: 30/06/2020

Content:
Emma Lane was even when driving to her mother not happy about it because they have not been getting along for years now. But her anger gets even worse when her mother ditches her for her new husband and their honeymoon. And she really dumps her at Camp Mapplewood, where she never wanted to go again after a traumatic incident with trees that happened years ago. But Emma is not planning to stay long at this camp, so she does everything to get kicked out of camp. Because of that she draws the attention of the attractive camp counselor Vivian Black. Maybe her summer won't be as she thought it would be.
Will Vivian help her with her worst fears?

Opinion:
This book is so nicely written, I swear! I couldn't stop reading, so I totally read it in one night. The story is so detailed that I could even see the camp and the people there in my head. Also, I really sympathized with Emma. She is such an amazingly developed character. All the other characters are pretty good described and developed too, but I totally fell in love with the main character. She is so sweet, and I totally understood her. She is the typical teenager, but she actually knows what she wants. Also, her standing up for Gwen was so amazing, I almost cried there.
Additionally, the cover is so beautiful!

Conclusion:
All in all, I really recommend this book! It is so cute and amazing! There is literally no reason to not read it!

In a way I am very sad to write this review cause I really wanted to love this book, but ended up with ambivalent feelings.
The book touched upon several important subjects, such as mental health issues, LGBT youth interactions, disfunctional family dynamics and so much more.
I adored the connection between Emma and Julie. I loved it even more how their relationship was very celeverly juxtapositioned with the relationship between Emma and her mother. Personally I would’ve also enjoyed a little more interaction between Emma and her father, but I understand how that would be a bit hard in a summer camp.
Lots and lots of cookie points for the representation of certain mental health issues. Finally we get to read about what happens after someone asks for help. How there is no magic cure for any mental illness and the road ahead in life is always going to be bumpy. The way the writer described a panic attack was also on point. However I felt that some of the inner emotional turmoil was missing.
For me personally all the good parts, all the potential was ruined by the dialogues and the character depths.
I am so sorry to say this, but apart from some funny banters, I just did not enjoy the dialogues, at all. They felt forced and unnatural, especially during the more intimate settings. It wasn’t the meaning, but rather the wording/phrasing that was the root of the problem.
The characters in this book, to my biggest disappointment, were very one/two dimensional. However I do have to admit that this feeling might be a result of the already mentioned issue with the dialogues.
I didn’t have the notion that I got to know the characters, I wasn’t rooting for anyone in particular and I most definitely didn’t feel any kind of kinship with anyone.
I hope that some of the dialogues and scenes might be edited before publication because this book has all the potential to be amazing. It is a diamond in the rough if they can manage to emotionally grab the reader.
I do feel the need to add that I very much wish my generation could’ve had books such as this growing up. I am very happy to see books discussing such important issues targeting young readers.

I want to thank Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was so adorable. I read it all in one sitting and wished it was longer!
The characters personalities jumped off the page and I felt like I was there experiencing everything with them.
The pace and dialogue were awesome.
Overall an. Amazing book!

I could not finish this book. I read about 20% and had to stop. The idea is interesting. However, the dialog was so forced and full of exposition. This author has room to grow, and I can see her work being something I would check in on down the line, but this one was not for me.

DNF
I only made it 25% into this book before giving up. This book threw about a dozen characters at me all at once without giving any of them depth. In just the bit I got through, there were several conflicts that never got resolved or explained, this book is just drama for the sake of drama. and none of it seems to add to the plot. I found this book conflicts to be very flat, and stereotypical. All if the dialogue is very unrealistic and stilted, none of the conversations sound real. This is the second wattpad book i've read, and will for sure be the last.

I tried to like this one. I really, really did. But honestly? This book was a disappointment. The characters were two-dimensional and bland, and the dialogue was stilted and unnatural. The love interest was similarly boring, and while they definitely felt like fourteen-year-olds, that's less of a compliment to the author and more of a personal annoyance. I could definitely tell this book was previously published on Wattpad, and had I known that before reading, I probably wouldn't've have read further than 25%. Ugh, I wanted to like this book so much, and I really can't put into words how disappointed I am by the execution.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I had such high hopes for this book! It was entertaining at its core plot but the dialogue and character development left a lot to be desired. Another round of editing could have also heavily improved issues with the book. The tension between Emma and Vivian was just the right amount, enough to make it thrilling to read but not heavy handed where you get annoyed. I enjoyed the daily battles Emma encounters at her time at camp and watching her slowly (and sometimes painfully) progress through her previous camp trauma. This novel would have been great to include an in-depth discussion on mental health. It made attempts to accomplish this but only hit the surface level aspects of how Emma mentally and emotionally deals with things. Overall, it could use a lot of work but the sapphic summer camp romance plot saved it for me.

What I really appreciated about this book was the fact that it was a queer romance novel where being queer wasn't the issue at all. I loved that Emma and Vivian were clear about their identities and that even the antagonist of the book was a queer girl. The concept of the book is also great, I think setting it at a summer camp is a really relatable premise that gives it an "easy summer reads" vibe.

Unfortunately, that's about where my praise for this book ends. The characters just seem very 2D to me and I had trouble relating to or caring about any of them, really. I also found a lot of the dialogue and prose to be stilted and oddly phrased. I can believe that there are some teens that talk like Emma and Vivian but even then, there were phrasings and lines that threw me for a loop. For example:
"Emma looked ready to shove the arrow into your heart. Perhaps a lesson on consent should be retaught at the camp, despite its awareness every single year." or "...Treated me like a dog, stole some of my possessions and now restrict me the fun of learning to replicate that adorable beaversock-key-chain thingy?"

I wish I could like this book more and I'm sure there are teens who still might but it's not a book I'm going to buy and not a book I'm likely to recommend unless I run out of other options.

I hate writing mean reviews but here we go.
Look, I wanted to love this and I was so sure I would.
I mean a f/f summer camp story sounds delightful, doesn't it?
Turns out it wasn't.

The characters were so one dimensional and fell flat, the writing was really not good and it felt like it hadn't been re-read not even once. Victoria Schwab recently said that one should read out loud what they write to ensure that it sounds right, this was definitely not done here and I could tell. I know you feel like I'm exaggerating so here are a few quotes.

"I see," she replied. "Everyone's phone, it tells you an awful lot of information about a person."


I lay on my back as she matched my body's form by climbing on top of me. My hands ventured over her curved body, exploring. We pulled apart and opened our eyes. Staring deeply at one another, we breathed in tandem, our eyes searching; mine were full of wonder, hers of curiosity.


"I kissed you," she hissed, leaning closer so no one else could hear. "You say I make things hard. Emma, no. You have to breathe and it's hard."


Usually, at night the main building's indoor lightning would make the entire camp seem bright and safe, but that night, it was the opposite as the lights weren't on.


Okay, I'm done with the quotes.
It was super hard to get through cause I kept rolling my eyes, and I had to sometimes reread sentences to understand what the author meant. Also, the story jumped for one moment to another in the same paragraph and it was hard to follow.
So yeah, this did not go as well as I had hoped... I definitely wouldn't recommend this.

This book is a hot mess! Like, I have had bad experiences with Wattpad books and I was hoping this would not be one of them (because gay summer romance? the best thing ever!) but it is UP THERE.

The characters were so two-dimensional they made paper look alive. Seriously, my textbook on Indian Polity had more personality that anyone in this book. Aside from the characters, the writing was really inconsistent; it was hard to keep track of what was happening and when. And this sucky writing also meant half the time, I had no idea who was speaking.

I did like that the sexuality of the MC was established very early on, but honestly, I'm tired of trying to read bad books again and again. And especially when I know Wattpad books are always a hit or a miss.

**ARC from NetGalley**

I mostly liked this one. The characters could have been better rounded out. Quite a bit of their actions didn't make sense or weren't explained. The most believable part is the main character putting off telling the love interest some important news for fear of how to say it / how it will be taken. Main character's mom was quite a Dolores Umbridge type, you hated her right away for what she was doing to her daughter. Some trigger warnings at the beginning would be helpful.

Imagine being dragged off to a summer camp by a parent you barely see. That’s what happened to Emma Lane in Night Owls and Summer Skies.

Emma Lane is a seventeen year old girl, who was pushed into visiting her mother. Emma thought that she’d be spending time with her, however, turns out her mum had other plans- dragging Emma to Camp Mapplewood, and going overseas with her new husband. Emma’s mum hoped that this camp would ‘straighten’ Emma out (which Emma points out is very homophobic) and help her socialise more. The main problem Emma faces is that she went to this very camp when she was younger, and got stuck high up in a tree. This led her to despise everything relating to camping, as well as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder alongside depression. Sullivan touched on these sensitive topics in a way that makes it relatable for the reader, without saying anything overly offensive, with characters pulling up other characters in their own way if they step over the line.

At Camp Mapplewood, we meet the Black siblings- Gwen, Vivian, and Walter. Each of these characters were rather unique and I liked how there was a contrast between Gwen, the youngest, and both Vivian and Walter. Walter was portrayed as a nerdy character, loving his pokemon card game, whereas Vivian liked to be cruel (in a kind way), and Gwen being meek. I wish I had more of Walter in this book, as his story arc would’ve been super interesting to read about! In Camp Mapplewood, we also meet Lauren, the camp bully, who is very clearly over-physical and doesn’t know her boundaries or where to stop. Alongside Lauren, is Jessie, a girl who was penpals with Emma, and knew Emma more than anyone in the camp. I loved the friendship breakdown between the two in the book as it didn’t involve as much drama as you’d expect. Even though some of the characters were well written, I felt like some of them (such as Jessie) could’ve been fleshed out a little bit more, to add an extra dimension into the story! I do love how a female-female romance does brew within this book alongside the main storyline.

This book was also a little bit of fun, with a couple of food fights, and a rather descriptive recount of a dodgeball game. I love how each of these built on top of each previous event, especially on the rivalry between Lauren and Emma. This rivalry reminded me a little of the movie The Parent Trap, as all these events lead up to Mr Black (the camp owner and the Black siblings’ father) forcing them to go to the isolation tent to sort out their differences with Vivian in tow. It was fun to read that part, as it meant Vivian got to have a big impact on Emma, as they both acted so cold to each other at first, but they must band together to face the evil that is Lauren, who is still gunning for the counsellor spot the following year. Following on with the Black family, I loved how Vivian eventually helped Emma face her fears, and Mrs Black provides a safe space for Emma to be away from the overbearing Lauren, teaching her how to cook.

I recommend this book for anyone who’s looking for a light, fun summer camp romance read that has The Parent Trap undertones.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, Wattpad Books.
Rating: 3.5/5

(Review available on my blog on 16th June)

oooof. I was originally going to DNF this but then decided to push on. probably should have just left it but it had so much promise as a female/female romance set at a summer camp. I did not like the writing AT ALL - it was so juvenile and cringe-y. the characterization was weird and I didn't really care about any of the characters. this was so disappointing!