DNF

I wanted to like this book SO badly. Between the fun play on words in the title, the adorable cover, the synopsis, and the fact I was the same age as the main character when I took my first trip to France - which started in the south of France and included Aix-en-Provence - I hoped this book would be a winner for me. I made it about halfway through and the only thing I enjoyed about it was the descriptions of France. The characters were flat and hard to connect to, the story dragged, and while I'm good at suspending believability in books (especially YA), the idea of Jamie taking on a treasure hunt 17 years later in heavily touristed areas was just impossible to believe.

I really enjoyed the setting of this book. I think the provides a lot of angst in the character's backstories. I would have liked to see more development of the central relationship. It felt more like a friendship, less like a romantic relationship.

Jamie was always eager to go to France, but she never imagined she would find herself in the country under these circumstances. Now, she has to make the best of her time in France. When she finds a letter, Jamie finds herself travelling against the French countryside with a boy, Valentin, who is willing to help her follow the trail of letters.

The amount of French that was used (and not translated) in here was incredibly important for me here. Part of the story, is Jamie's struggle in France. Despite her father being French and now staying with her Mamie (grandmother), Jamie's French is minimal leaving her confused and lost more often than not. As I know no French, this helped leave me confused and gave me a better understanding of what she might be feeling.

I do feel like the characters, Jamie especially, acted their age. There were a number of moments when I was incredibly frustrated with her, but I had to remind myself she was young and really just needed someone there to help guide her. That is what she was missing.

I'm not someone who had felt split between two countries, but I feel like Anderson did a great job of explaining it through Jamie. I could really feel her struggle of not feeling like she really belong in either one. It just left me wanting to hug her or try to offer her any comfort she was willing to take.

Anderson also did a wonderful job building up Provence. It was all described with such detail and love. I loved trying to imagine all of that through Jamie's eyes. It was beautiful and really did make me want to travel there.

Aix Marks the Spot is a quick read with some good points of discussion throughout. It's fun and has some major summer vibes. There were times when I do feel like it moved a little slow, but it was cute and entertaining.

This was a fun, light contemporary read. I enjoyed the descriptions of the French backdrop and the food. Jamie was a likable protagonist and I enjoyed following along with her on her hunt to uncover her father's secrets. However, I found her to be slightly annoying at times. In terms of the romance, it was also really sweet but it felt a bit rushed. I expected more development.
Other than that, the book was sweet. I recommend if you're looking for a light summer read.

Honestly this wasn’t my cup of tea. I requested it straight out of an Outer Banks binge when I felt like I needed more adventure in my life, and this only partially delivered. The actual traveling was pretty fun but I found the characters and plot to be quite lackluster. I think I might have liked it more when I was younger.

I absolutely love this book so much! This is a book I did not know I needed, the main character is so tough and adventurous to say the least and this is really empowering! I read this at the perfect time and this is a powerful read I needed. Finding yourself but make it adventurous is what I pitch this book as. I genuinely enjoy my time reading it and I flew through this book so quickly! It gave me a lot of strength to face the world, conquer the world even and the lessons that I get out of the book is really just for me! I highly recommend this book to anyone really, especially if you are doubting yourself or going through a difficult period of time, you will love this!

Thank you NetGalley for giving me this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited for this book and hoped I would love it. Unfortunately, I was never pulled into the story. It felt flat and I never connected with the characters.

cover is super good, but the story is not really my style. but i still recommend this book for others.

Aix Marks The Spot  By Sarah Anderson

Rating  3.5 / 5 Stars

Publication Date - 6/16/2020

** Thank you to Netgalley, Seabreeze Books, and of course, Sarah Anderson, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely adored this book. Every time I consider myself “aged out” of YA Romance, It shocks me and pulls me right back in. The premise was the reason i requested this book as I am someone who loves to travel and experience new places and experiences. 

Aix details Jamie’s life as she dreams of summers with her best friend meeting cute boys, expressing herself in art, and feeling free as she coasts down the road feeling the freedom brush through her hair. What wasn’t on that list of dreams? Getting into a car accident. 

After her mother is injured, Jamie is sent to France, Provance to be exact and forced into living with her French grandmother who is virtually a stranger to her. As someone who has been France, I was so impressed with the way Anderson depicted the beautiful country. Someone who had not been would be able to feel like they could smell the lavender fields of Provance through the pages. 

Enter Valentin, who begins to help Jamie learn and translate French while she searches for the treasure she believes might help her family.  After willing to accompany her, The relationship between Valentin and Jamie shows cultural differences, love, heartbreak, and the quest to find one’s self while also trying to help those around you.

In my mind, the ending was a bit rushed, and that is the only reason I am giving this book a 3.5 instead of 4. The setting, characters, and storyline all provide a well-rounded novel, one which makes me want to book a flight to France ASAP!

The best thing about this book is how vivid and beautiful the descriptions are. I felt like I was actually traveling through France with our main character, Jamie. The perfect atmosphere definitely makes the book have a higher rating for me, however, I would say the plot lacks valid motivation and good character building. It tried to tie in a tragic accident involving her mother with the history of her parents' love. Jamie goes on a quest from reading her dad's old scavenger hunt letters that he wrote for her mom and left them all around the south of France, and the whole time Jamie constantly tells herself that she isn't allowed to enjoy any of it because of the accident that has left her mother injured. It felt to me like a weak internal conflict and didn't make much sense in the grand scheme of the story, sometimes she just sounded spoiled and whiny and then the book would remind you of this guilt she was holding to make her actions/thoughts seem reasonable but personally I don't think it aligned the whole time. 
Overall though the vibe and the atmosphere is nice if you are in the mood for a book involving travel and light family drama and light romance.

This reminded me so much of the movie Passport to Paris (traveling all over France with a cute boy). There was a little mystery involved, lots of French scenes and language and character growth. I would recommend for the younger YA audience. Very sweet.

This book was not for me. I did not particularly like it and ended up DNFing it thus won't be able to provide a detailed review.

When I got this book, I was truly excited, because I heard a lot of good things about it. 
But unfortunately when I got time to read it, I was a little disappointed. 
It is cute and sweet read, but nothing that staid with me...
The end felt rushed... 
Just not my cup of tea, I guess so...
3 stars.

I made the mistake of requesting Aix Marks the Spot without having read the summary carefully enough beforehand. If I had, I would have realized sooner that the protagonist is a high school student and that the book falls solidly into the YA category, a genre that I've recently come to realize that I've mostly outgrown unfortunately, apart from the YA fantasy. 

Requesting this book was an honest mistake. But even though I wouldn't have requested it had I known that it was YA beforehand, I still felt obligated to give the book a fair try. And give it a fair try I did, so let me say this about it: Aix Marks the Spot wasn't a bad story, as far as YA goes. I think that many YA readers will find the characters to be likable and sweet, especially Jamie, our female protagonist. That being said, I, personally, did not feel the chemistry between Valentin and Jamie, but you can probably write that off as being just one of the problems I frequently have with contemporary YA romances. I'm sure that several of the conversations between them that I found to be awkward and lacking tension/heat, others will find to be endearing and charming. Unfortunately, I can't make myself think something is endearing when it feels awkward and stilted to me, no matter how hard I try. 

That being said, just because Aix Marks the Spot wasn't my cup of tea, that is definitely no reason to believe that it won't be the perfect book for other people, especially given my weak affinity for the genre. I actually happen to think that people who enjoy reading contemporary YA romances will really enjoy this story for the very same reasons that I did not, and I would encourage those people to give this book a try.

This is a very immersive read. I liked how the author was able to bring France to the reader as make me feel as if I was there. I got to learn a lot about the culture, the food and the places mentioned in the book which is something I really appreciated. I also think that setting the story in France was a wise move in terms of the romance and helped making the romance more vivid.

We get to see Jamie's very dysfunctional family and I appreciated that the author took the time to include this topic in her book and develop it in such a realistic yet respectful way. Though I didn't like Jamie's character that much because she came off as immature in some situations with Valentin, I can see her background contributed in making her like that.

Overall, this is a cute read for the summer that does not hold back with the hard topics. Despite having it's ups and downs I'd still recommend it.

After living in France for several years, and experiencing the whole wildly out of water experience of moving to a country where you cannot for the life of you get the words you know to come out in a coherent fashion, I am always keen to find books that distil that experience out onto the page. And this one does, but also doesn’t. It’s a curious mix.



Good things first: I really loved exploring the south of France. There were places that I’ve been to before and I shrieked delightedly at my husband that they were visiting Cassis. And places that I’ve never experienced that I immediately added to the itinerary or our next trip. It made me feel homesick for excellent coffee and pastries and the food. It transported me straight into the middle of a hot French summer, where you can barely think beyond the sound of the cicadas. 
However (you knew it was coming, didn’t you) I just couldn’t connect with Jamie. Whilst I completely empathised with the fish out of water experience, and struggling to keep up in a country where you aren’t fluent, I found her to be incredibly unlikable and frustrating. She is convinced that she’s been exiled to France because her parents hate her, and yet the few interactions she has with them early on do nothing to provide a basis for that. She struggles with the language yet makes zero effort to learn. She finds other tourists with their loud, obnoxious English conversations to be mortifying, yet can’t seem to understand that she is exactly the same.
It’s a light and quick read, and one that I enjoyed up to a point. But it never really finds its feet because it is weighed down by how frustrating I found Jamie. She wasn’t someone I wanted to spend time with - half the time I just wanted to shake her. However, as a book that catapults you right back into the heat of a summer in France it was a good escape.

This review will be published on The Review Diaries on 15th July 2020.

Thank you to Netgalley, Sarah Anderson, and Sea Breeze Books for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A story of a teenager who feels lost and feels blame for the injury to her mother, Jamie finds herself in France for the summer with the grandmother she has never met. A time of adventure, discovery, and trying to find the answers, Aix Marks the Spot is a great read for teens and fans of YA! The descriptions of France are wonderful and truly make the reader feel present and rising along for the journey!

This story deals with issues I think a lot of people endure as teenagers, and even as adults, in which blame is placed on ourself a BY ourselves for matters out of our control. It’s following along Jamie dealing with these issues, and trying to figure out how she can fix the situation with her parents. It is also about family and not only finding family, but enforcing bonds that were there and creating new bonds.

It is a wonderful read and my heart went out to Jamie at certain moments in this book as her immense guilt and anger overtakes her at times. And, alas, she truly is a teenager and definitely has moments of being a teen in this story lol. And we can’t forget love. There are many kinds of love in this story, some simple and easy, others much deeper and more difficult.

Check out this book! Give it a read! Tell a friend about it!!!

Aix Marks the Spot is a fun, light-hearted adventure story following Jaime as she connects with a grandmother she's never met and goes on treasure hunt around France.

This book was such a quick and fun read. I loved how the author took Jaime and the reader to different parts of France. And it wasn't just a quick glance over. The author really put time into making each place an unforgettable experience for both Jaime and the readers. After reading the acknowledgements, I really loved that author intertwined her own personal experiences of each of these places into the story. It made each scene feel more tangible and real. Many times, I could see and hear each of the elements from the ocean breeze, to the sweat from a challenging hike, to the chattering tourists, and the smell of fresh made crepes. I love a good travel story, and this really fit the bill.

Not only was the scenery and travel interesting, I really enjoyed finding each of these letters. I loved the journey to each letter and then reading the letter. The letters were sweet and gave us insight into Jaime's parents and who they were as people. It also gave us flashbacks in a fun way so we could compare the old (when the parents were at each location) and the new (when Jaime and Valentin were at these locations). The twist at the end was also a nice surprise and helped to wrap everything up.

My main issue with this book was Jaime. Jaime was whiny and bratty for most of the book. I understand the reasoning behind why she was acting the way she was, and I understand she is a teenager, but it got tiresome after awhile. She'd be self-hating and depressed one minute and then the next she would be having a temper tantrum for not getting her way. This is probably a personal preference, but the reason behind Jaime's self-punishment felt underwhelming. I wished it was something bigger or there was a different reason for her to go to France. All of this was due to miscommunication which is one of my pet-peeves in stories. She also felt underdeveloped as did the rest of the characters. For having spent the whole book with Jaime and Valentin, I found that I didn't actually know all that much about them. I felt like there was a missed opportunity to explore Mamie more as she was an extremely interesting character. Overall, I think the characters could have been developed more and that would have helped round out the issues I had with Jaime's character. 

I also was really jarred by the switching of tenses. There were times when the story was told in second person and then switch to first person and then switch back to second. I understand why the author did this. She wanted Jaime to be talking to her mom the whole story, but because it wasn't consistent throughout the whole story, it felt out of the blue when it switched to 2nd tense. I think Jaime could have still talked to her mom, but maybe in a journal or just have the whole book in 2nd person. 

Overall, even though I had a couple of things I didn't like about this book, I still found myself wanting to keep reading it. I stayed up late so that I could see what happened next. It was also an incredible quick and easy read was nice for me. I was always surprised by how much I had read and how close I'd be getting to the end. I recommend it to anyone who loves a good summer romance and travel story.

Amo descobrir livros novos e, nesse meio, acabar sendo surpreendida. 2020 tem seguido bem essa pegada em leituras para mim, sobretudo no âmbito YA que, como no caso desse livro,  têm me feito perceber o quão profundo esse gênero ainda pode ser.

Por ter amado Amor & Gelato no início do ano, quando me deparei com a sinopse desse eu logo tive que ler. A premissa que se passa na França aos olhos de uma adolescente americana enviada para passar as férias com a avó materna com quem nunca teve contato antes me deu um ar da mesma saga de Lina no outro livro citado, e fiquei empolgada por encontrar mais uma história sobre trocas culturais e familiares, além do bônus da caça ao tesouro que Jamie acaba por descobrir.

Acontece que, mesmo o livro indo de encontro a essas expectativas iniciais, ele também foi além. Sob o pretexto da caça ao tesouro, Jamie vai acabar imersa numa verdadeira jornada não só de descobrir qual o grande tesouro ao final dela, mas também, nesse processo,  a encarar a si mesma e o que a levou a, primeiro de tudo, ir parar na França. 

Pouco a pouco, vemos Aix Marks the Spot se desdobrar de um "simples" YA para uma história que vai falar muito sobre temas bem reais e importantes, como o perdão, cuja pauta é iniciada logo por Jamie que se culpa constantemente por algo que ela acredita ter feito à mãe e vê na caça ao tesouro uma tentativa de se redimir. Além disso, por meio das interações entre ela, a avó Colette e Valentin, um garoto francês com quem faz amizade, muito vai se falar também sobre as diferenças culturais e os altos e baixos entre elas; sobre a importância de respeitar a cultura, idioma e país do outro, até discussões sobre como, por diversas vezes, a diferença linguística é só um detalhe e, com ou sem ela, ainda se pode evitar certos equívocos ou, no caso de Jamie e os demais, consertar erros.

Não leia esperando um romance como a sinopse pode destacar. Ele existe, mas bem nas entrelinhas, uma vez que o foco de verdade é a jornada de Jamie, por vezes ao lado de Valentin a auxiliando na localização e afins, rumo a descobrir um tesouro que, no final, nos leva junto com ela a descobrir e passear por entre as belezas e curiosidades de Provença e, logo mais, a ser mais um pretexto para fazer não só ela, bem como todos ao seu redor, a refletirem melhor sobre as culpas que carregamos e que, merecendo-as ou não, o quão libertador é se permitir perdoar, não só aos outros como, também, a si mesmo.

Está aí uma leitura que me fez refletir, emocionar, destacar vários quotes que me despertaram pensamentos, reações e sentimentos diferentes ao longo da leitura, me fez passar raiva com os personagens em alguns momentos e querer colocá-los em um potinho em outros, além de, por vezes, me fazer sentir como se estivesse passeando com os personagens por Provença e outros lugares ao sul da França que, se antes eu não conhecia, fiquei com vontade de visitar um dia. Um livro, várias emoções, e ainda que não tenha sido 5 estrelas ou um favorito, continua sendo incrível e eu definitivamente recomendo!

I’ve never wanted to visit France more than how I felt after I finished this book. It was such a nice summer read that transported me on a trip to Provence when I’m currently stuck at home. Such a good coming of age story and really coming to know yourself. Highly recommend if you’re looking for an easy summer read!

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.