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!

I don't give bad reviews to ARCs lightly. As I see it, a book is a result of so much hard work and I absolutely want to help books that might not reach a broad readership. I also believe that it's great that the publishing world is more accessible, I mean, this started off as on Wattpad as a NaNoWriMo project. That's awesome.  

So <i>Night Owls and Summer Skies</i> is about Emma, a bitter teenager who gets sent to camp. She has a weird childhood trauma from this camp (her friends stranded her on a tree and she somehow has turned this into a massive life changing tragedy, I kid you not). At camp, her counselor Vivian and her fall in love and together, work through all the teen drama. 

I'll start by saying that the writing was good. It felt polished. The dialogue was a little odd at times but it also felt like it had style. I can imagine people speaking like that, even if I myself do not. Vivian and Emma has as much chemistry as the next ya couple. 

However, my biggest problem here was Vivian. Oh Vivian. 

As a former camp counselor, let me just say this. I would never ever <i>ever</i> consider getting into any type of romantic or sexual relationship with any one of my campers. It's not an age thing, or a legal thing (well, maybe a bit of a legal thing, my camp kept reminding us that we can get sued for pretty much everything) .It's a responsibility thing. Even with older kids, they look up to you. You're not on even ground, you do have some authority and being in a relationship abuses this. Even if there's only a two year difference, I genuinely think Emma's consent is dubious. 

When you're working, you're not entirely yourself so I definitely felt like my kids didn't know me actually. They knew me as a counselor but that's just not the same thing. Like heck, it was my actual job to tolerate some of their bullshit and well, when that's the case, there isn't room for such feelings, even if I absolutely adored my campers.  

So it was just hard for me to appreciate this book because I couldn't stop wanting to shout at Vivian, "What the heck (cause we don't curse in front of the kids)??". How can the problematic nature of this relationship not concern you?? Vivian never even mentions this, Vivian pursues this relationship just as much as Emma and I just can't explain how irritated this makes me. No one around Vivian mentions this and I just don't get it. 

I wasn't a very good counselor for various reasons and I messed up during my time as a counselor more times than I can remember but even with that, at least I can feel content knowing I wasn't as bad of a counselor as Vivian. Beyond the actual falling in love with a camper thing, here's a brief list of the things Vivian does: 

-<b>Looks through Emma's phone</b>: I just can't imagine doing something so invasive to my campers (or really anyone, phones are so private). 
-<b> Never helps out:</b>- during my time as a camp counselor, I pretended to enjoy sports, I cleaned vomit, I swept the massive auditorium (several times, my camp realized that international staff = cheap labor), I packed like 8 massive suitcases (although, this also has to do with me being really good at packing). So I genuinely don't understand how Vivian can stand in the sidelines and tell her campers that she's "supervising" or that she can just do nothing to help them out.
-<b>Makes fun of her campers:</b> Sure, some counselors have a style that includes teasing campers (and since my tendency to make fun of myself led to my kids thinking I'm actually stupid, I'm not sure if I can really judge anyone's style). That said, Vivian constantly says hurtful things about her campers. This is seriously problematic because campers do remember these things and she's causing damage. 
-<b>Gossips about her campers with other campers:</b> I can't imagine doing this. Like, my 10-11 year olds had tons of drama and I had to try and mediate and sure, it was very tempting to pick sides and go, "heck yeah, this girl is mean, you're so right!" but you can't do that (even though I absolutely had picked sides).

All together, this is beyond unprofessional. This type of behavior is harmful and never gets addressed in the book. Young people see counselors as role models. When a counselor acts like this, it opens the door for everyone else to act this way (or, as I learned in camp, "why do I have to make my bed when you don't make yours?"). I realize this is a fictional story but I wonder if Sullivan has ever been at camp or why she would portray something that's so far from reality. 
 
I realize I can't speak for all camps and that surely there are different camp experiences but the sheer lack of awareness here felt jarring and made it hard for me to see anything else. All in all, it felt impossible for me to look at this book as anything but deeply inappropriate. It made me so uncomfortable and disgusted. 

If the author wanted to create a camp romance, she could have (a) had done the relationship between two counselors (you have no idea about the drama between counselors, it was unreal) or (b) set this a few years after camp. Heck, they could have met in college and Vivian could have dramatically admitted that she liked Emma as a counselor but couldn't follow through because of her counselor duties. 

As it is now, I just can't recommend this book. I want to support new authors and I want to support LGBT+ romances but the downsides here just overpower the advantages. I hope Sullivan continues writing and will definitely keep an eye out for her next book. 

<b>What I'm Taking With Me:</b>
- How the heck did Vivian even have time and mental energy for a romance? There were days when I barely had time to shower. 
- Also, there were so many annoying troupes here. Like, the mom who's rude to the girlfriend. 
- Don't even get me started about Lauren because that is another mess and I could probably write a 2500 word essay on why Lauren's character is a badly written mistake. 
- And isn't it weird that there's so much competition about being a counselor but no official or fair way to get in? I mean, as a family run business, surely they do need to be careful about nepotism.

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 received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Let me start by saying, I don’t like to do negative reviews. I think it takes a lot of courage not only to write, but to get published. This review will be short and sweet as to not focus on the negative too much.

This book was okay. I liked the setting, who doesn’t enjoy a good summer time camp story? And I liked that the main character was gay and that there was a pansexual character as well. We love to see diversity!

But the plot jumped all over the place. Teenagers do not talk like that ever, the dialogue and plot points are a bit unrealistic. Everything felt so easily resolved all the time. There wasn’t a lot of drive to keep you wanting to read on. I think you could lower the ages of the characters and maybe remove a few scenes and this would be a good middle grade book.

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.

night owls and summer skies is a sweet and precious young adult novel. i love this cover and i love the story and i twas so precious nad cute and read it right now. asap.

I was so excited to read this book ever since I saw the gorgeous cover and read its description. I mean, gay summer romance and mental health are topics that I really love to read about, but but.. It was so promising, so sad I didn't like it.
First of all, there is this girl, Emma. She's gay and she suffers from depression but she is so irritating that several times I had to take a break from reading about her. Basically, it's just talking about characters, which I found very unrealistic and childlish. The only character that I liked is Gwen and I liked how mature she actually is. I also liked her friendship with Emma. To sum it up, I didn't like this book simply because I found the characters quite irritating and I guess I had high hopes for this one. This book just isn't for me.

My rating:
2.5/5 ⭐

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.

Night owls and summer skies by Rebecca Sullivan is a YA LGBT romance set in a summer camp where main character, Emma gets dumped for the summer by her mother who’s going on a cruise with her new husband. T/W for PTSD, Depression and Anxiety. I received a e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own and this in no way effected my review.

Right off the bat I want to say I hate writing bad reviews and I really wanted to love this book, a cute summer romance AND its LGBTQ! I knew I needed to read it right away and for the most part I was sadly disappointed. If you grew up on Wattpad books like me the clichés and writing style shouldn’t be too much of a shock too your system but if not there’s a chance it’ll be difficult to read.

I enjoyed reading about an out and proud lead as we see a lot more coming out stories in YA so I enjoyed reading a story with this development, especially because he dad was so excepting of her sexuality. The romance between Emma and camp councillor, Vivian, was cute and fluffy although it lacked any real substance and I was left wondering what they really had in common and what their relationship was based of. Which is the case for almost all of the characters which for the most part are two dimensional and bland relying solely on being quirky and sarcastic to get them through the story, which would have been fine if not all the characters followed this guideline.

The narrative itself had a lot going on especially with Emma’s mental health issues and her past relating to the camp however the way they were executed was confusing at times and made little sense together. The ending was cute and I think it fit the story development well although unfortunately this story ended up not being my cup of tea which I was incredibly disappointed about as I had expected to love it.

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!