I received this ARC for a promotional post through TBR & Beyond Tours. The following is the text from my promotional post, along with links to where I promoted Sometime in Summer:

What has your favorite summer read been so far?

Today is my stop on TBR and Beyond Tours’ release celebration tour for Sometime in Summer by Katrina Leno! To celebrate the release of this book, I’ll be spotlighting it on my feed today, but be sure to head over to the tour schedule (link in bio) to see content from the other hosts!

Here’s a Synopsis of Sometime in Summer:

From critically acclaimed author Katrina Leno comes a tender love letter to books and summertime, with a touch of magic.
Anna Lucia Bell believes in luck: bad luck. Bad luck made her best friend stop talking to her. Bad luck caused her parents’ divorce. Bad luck is forcing her mother, Miriam, to sell the family’s beloved bookstore. And it is definitely bad luck that Anna seems to be the only person in the world Miriam is unable to recommend a life-changing book.
When Anna finds out that she and her mom are spending two months in a New England seaside town called Rockport, she expects a summer plagued with bad luck too. But Rockport has surprises in store for Anna, including a comet making its first appearance in over twenty years and two new—but familiar—friends.
In what will prove to be the most important summer of her life so far, Anna learns about love, herself, and the magic that an ordinary summer can bring.

Hey book lovers! I'm here with a book review for a PERFECT summer read for ALL readers 12+, Sometime in Summer by Katrina Leno. I didn't want to put it down and loved every page. I read an arc from Netgalley, this book was published June 28 and is out there ready for you to check it out!


About The Book 📚
Title: Sometime in Summer

Author: Katrina Leno

Publication Date: June 28, 2022

Publisher: Little, Brown Books For Young Readers

Suggested Reader Age: 12+

Genre: YA (teen), Contemporary, Romance, Magical Realism
"Katrina Leno was born on the East Coast and currently lives in Los Angeles. She is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels for young adults: Sometime in Summer, Horrid, You Must Not Miss, Summer of Salt, Everything All at Once, The Lost & Found, and The Half Life of Molly Pierce. Her eighth novel (and first middle grade) The Umbrella Maker’s Son, arrives Summer 2023. She thinks you are just lovely." https://www.katrinaleno.com/contact

My Review
› Sometime in Summer is probably the best book I read so far this year and one of my favourite books I've ever read. I'm trying to convince both of my teen children to read it, this may involve bribing them with ice cream. I'm incredibly jealous of Anna's mother who could just give her a stack of books to read while they are on summer vacation and Anna actually READS them (even the ones she doesn't like).

I can't tell you everything I want to tell you about this book because I don't want to ruin your experience. This is a story about two people who get a divorce, but who still love each other and respect each other and who parent their child together even though they aren't a romantic couple. This is a story about two friends falling in love. It's a story about finding yourself and feeling like you have bad luck. This is about a bookstore owned by Anna's mother who can choose the exact book someone needs in their life - THE book that will change their life. This is about the rough patches of life, the fights with friends, and finding new ones. This is about forgiveness and discovering who you are. This is about a mother and daughter spending a summer in a small, east coast beach town that reminded me of the time I've spent in Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland (Canada). Tens across the board - ★★★★★!

› Characters: 10
› Atmosphere: 10
› Writing Style: 10
› Plot: 10
› Intrigue: 10
› Logic: 10
› Enjoyment: 10
Average 10

My Rating ★★★★★

› Final Thoughts
• Sometime in Summer was published on June 28, 2022. GO AND GET IT! This is for all readers 12+ (maybe even younger than that to be honest). Magical, meaningful. I hardly ever re-read books, this will be one that I want to own and re-read and lend to others. Fantastic.


Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this book soooooo much! Absolute perfection. I can't wait to read it again and to share it with my niece!

➸ 4.5 stars

Sometime in Summer is a quietly magical book that encompasses all the moments in your life before you realise that, as much as you try, you can't control how things change. And that's a part of growing up. Anna has just turned fourteen and is struggling with her parents separation, her family's bookstore being sold and the news that she'll be spending the next two months in a small Massachusetts beach town. A comet appearing over the skies of Rockport brings Anna a chance to make new friendships, bring her parents back together and find herself along the way.

I've read one other Katrina Leno book - Horrid, and it was a perfectly creepy haunted house story so I was intrigued to see her upcoming release was lighter and more heartfelt. I jumped onto the blog tour ready to be transported to a New England summer.

Katrina Leno's writing has so much heart and nostalgia behind it. She paints a vivid picture of Rockport; I could smell the sea air, imagine myself walking down the quaint, charming main street, taste the delectable fudge. "The salt of this ocean made the air thick and almost blue and hazy and full. The salt of this ocean was something you could smell and walk through and bite." Leno captures that balmy summer feeling and puts it perfectly into words.

Whilst the character of Anna is on the younger end of the scale for YA, this book still manages to feel universal with it's themes of growing up and letting go of parts of your old life. Anna is an easy character to love and root for. She has a matureness about her but you could feel that she was still discovering her place in the world especially with the challenges that life has been throwing at her. I also found it interesting to read about this character with such an indifference to reading. Anna loves her family bookstore but didn't inherit her parent's love of reading but I loved that she came to the realisation that she can still write and put pen to paper as a way of expressing herself.

I loved how this book examines familial relationships, the Bell family unit is wonderful and it was really lovely to see her mum and dad acknowledging that they still have so much love for each other but that they not longer belong together. There's no bitterness here, it's just how life goes sometimes.

Whilst I enjoyed the magical element in here (I don't know how much I can say without giving away a major plot point), I'll just mention a few inconsistencies that irked me. Like her mum letting her go out in the evening in a strange town without her phone! And actively taking it away from her cause she wanted to listen to a meditation app, that's some careless parenting! Some other parts felt a little too convenient as well but on the larger scale they were minor blips.

When it comes to coming of age contemporaries this is up there with the best. This was a sincere look at how summer as a teenager can be the most magical time in your life, how relationships are ever evolving and change is inevitable. I think readers of a similar age will wholeheartedly relate to the lessons that Anna learns over the course of the novel and if you're older then it will give you that sentimental longing for past summers.

have a couple of Katrina Leno Books on my TBR and am yet to read them as I was unsure that I would like them. But after getting a place on the Sometime in Summer Blog Tour with the wonderful TBR Tours & Beyond I know now that I will enjoy them.

I loved the homage to books and their authors running throughout the story' loved Miriam, Everett, Emmy and Beck were really great characters and made the story but Anna I found annoying, ungrateful and didn't know how lucky she was. Her incessant chopping and changing calling her Mum and Dad's first names when she felt like it and her problems were bigger than anyone else's just made me want to put the book down and I did.

Katrina's writing style and her using magical realism in a way that I only have seen in adult novels as well as turning Rockport into a living and breathing character really helped to call me back to the book and I am really glad I soldiered on. For all these reasons I am giving Sometime in Summer 4 stars.

This book was magical and whimsical. It's the perfect summer beach read. The characters are heartwarming. I do wish the pace was a little faster but overall this was a cute read.

Utter perfection. Made me sob.

I was curious about this one because it felt so much more lighthearted than other Katrina Leno books, and it definitely is, but there's still so much emotion in this one.

The speculative twist is so good! But it's best not to talk about it because it's too pivotal to the story and it'll be a huge spoiler.

This book handles amicable divorce in such a beautiful way. If I had had this book as a teenager it would have made a huge impact on my life. The parents reminded me so much of my own and of my own experience with their divorce.

My favorite Katrina Leno yet.

Katrina Leno’s novels are always super easy to read with characters that are easy to identify with and Sometime in Summer is no different. Anna reminded me of all of those anxious moments from my own childhood, meeting new friends, starting my period, and navigating the emotions of my parents split. The Kit-Hale meteor shower definitely adds an unreal atmosphere for her time spent in this beach town. Anna is a girl who is at that awkward stage where she feels everything deeply but doesn’t show her emotions, hiding all of her troubles from parents who are going through their own issues.

I loved the unexplained moments that this author shared in this book. Slightly magical and definitely supernatural they added an air of mystery and hope that I just couldn’t help but love. Katrina Leno definitely knows how to create magical moments in her novels. There were moments that were just lovely.

If you love young adult novels that send you back in time to your own youth and also has elements of mysticism I think you’ll love this novel, please give it a try! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest.

I got an advance copy of this book from NetGalley and am participating in the TBR and Beyond Tours. Thanks to both.

Book Info:

Sometime in Summer by Katrina Leno
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Publishing Date: June 28, 2022

Synopsis:

From critically acclaimed author Katrina Leno comes a tender love letter to books and summertime, with a touch of magic.

Anna Lucia Bell believes in luck: bad luck. Bad luck made her best friend stop talking to her. Bad luck caused her parents’ divorce. Bad luck is forcing her mother, Miriam, to sell the family’s beloved bookstore. And it is definitely bad luck that Anna seems to be the only person in the world Miriam is unable to recommend a life-changing book.

When Anna finds out that she and her mom are spending two months in a New England seaside town called Rockport, she expects a summer plagued with bad luck too. But Rockport has surprises in store for Anna, including a comet making its first appearance in over twenty years and two new—but familiar—friends.

In what will prove to be the most important summer of her life so far, Anna learns about love, herself, and the magic that an ordinary summer can bring.

My Summary:

I liked the setting of both the brief glimpse we get into Los Angeles and the sleepy coastal town of Rockport. I don't think the story would have worked if it was set in another town. It definitely gives off that sleepy town vibe. I enjoyed the parents as well, although it was confusing when Anna kept switching between calling them mom and dad and Miriam and Everett. That was an inconsistency. I also liked the fantasy/magic in the book, but I will not give away what the magic is. You'll have to read it for yourself.

I also liked the characters, but I wish Anna's friends Josh and CeCe could have been in it more. There were some points of the book also that seemed to rush through the weeks without letting the reader know anything that happened.

For fans of sleepy coastal town stories with some magic involved, and coming-of-age stories. This would be good for young adults or middle-grade audiences.

Book Links:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58783422-sometime-in-summer
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316194514/
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sometime-in-summer-katrina-leno/1140276392?ean=9780316194518
Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Sometime-Summer-Katrina-Leno/9780316194518?ref=grid-view&qid=1650569015643&sr=1-1
Indigo: https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/sometime-in-summer/9780316194518-item.html
IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780316194518

Tour Schedule:
https://tbrandbeyondtours.com/2022/05/05/tour-schedule-sometime-in-summer-by-katrina-leno/

About the Author:
Katrina Leno was born on the East Coast and currently lives in Los Angeles. She is the author of six critically acclaimed novels: Horrid, You Must Not Miss, Summer of Salt, Everything All at Once, The Lost & Found, and The Half Life of Molly Pierce. Her seventh novel, Sometime in Summer, arrives June 28 2022. She thinks you are just lovely.




Author Links:
Website: https://www.katrinaleno.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/katrinaleno
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katrinalenobooks/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6549397.Katrina_Leno
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katrinalenobooks

Anna is a fourteen-year old teenager who is followed by bad luck. Her parents are getting divorced, her best friend has become a stranger and her mother has to sell the family’s bookshop. Nothing goes right in her life and Anna is sick of her bad luck. When she is forced to spend two months in Rockport with her mother she already fears that the bad luck streak is following her there too. However, this small town has a few surprises in store for our main character.

Anna was such a charismatic and realistic teenage girl. I loved seeing her grow throughout the story and had some troubles containing the tears. Anna is probably every bookworms worst nightmare but I enjoyed some of the puns so much that I literally laughed out loud at some of the passages.

Unfortunately I can’t tell more about the book because then I wouldn’t be a spoiler-free review anymore. What I can tell you however is that I loved the bond between mother and daughter, it just felt so real!

The story was beautifully written and even though the book was a bit slow-paced it was still a very enjoyable read for me. If you want a lovely summer read and you are a YA Reader then this read just has to be on your Summer TBR.

Thank you to TBR and Beyond Tours, Netgalley, and Hachette for the ARC of Sometime in Summer by Katrina Leno in exchange for my honest review!

plot: 5/5
pacing: 3.5/5
characters 4/5
writing: 4/5
enjoyment: 4/5

final rating: 4.1/5 stars

Sometime in Summer follows are 14 year old girl named Anna as she struggles to find balance in her life after a massive falling out with her best friend, the news of her parent's divorce, and the news of her mother selling their family bookstore that Anna practically grew up in. To get away, Anna and her mom take a trip to a New England town called Rockport where she learns more about her parents' past and about her own self growth.

The plot in this book was very unique and it was unlike anything else that I've ever read. To me, the ending was amazing, by far my favorite part of the book. As a younger teen, Anna still has much to learn but it was nice to watch her grow and admit to her own mistakes. I loved how all of the
plot points came together and the way the luck and fate was tied into the plot.

The writing style was very fluent and easy to read, so the book was fairly quick paced. Towards the middle, there were moments that I got a bit bored, but at the end things got so interesting the I could not put the book down!

I loved Miriam's character, she was probably my favorite character. Anna, as expected, was confused and in lots of denial, so reading from her perspective got somewhat frustrating at times. Nevertheless, I loved reading about Miriam and Everetts love story and learning more about their past history together.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I'd recommend it to any audience but mainly younger teens (13-15)
1 like

📖Book: Sometimes in Summer
⭐️Rating: 4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
✍🏼Author: Katrina Leno
📚Genre: Teens & YA
🗏 Pages: 407
Readability: 4/5 Italic font present and used frequently

This book felt like going back home to me. Anna believes in bad luck, which is why her best friend stopped talking to her, the divorce of her parents (tattooed father & bookworm mother), and the reason they are forced to sell her family's beloved bookstore. Nothing could get worse besides being forced to spend two months with your mother on the seaside shore of Rockport, MA. Anna is met with adventure, fudge, coastal shores views, bookstores, thrifting, new friends, her parents, and a summer she will never forget. Add in a magical comet, and some unforgettable friends and this book is the perfect summertime read. Katrina has written the perfect bookstore love letter to the 14-year-old girls who need them. This is on the younger side of YA, and I blend the emotional side of seeing your life falling apart while trying to figure out who you really are. Sometimes our lives must change for us to truly become who we are supposed to be. Anna does that through the adventure of the seaside town of Rockport and Gloucester. This book allowed me to go back home to a place where when I was 14, it was new, and my parents were also separating. I got to spend the day with my father (who loved watching me work with books) and return to some of my favorite places in one of my famous towns. Rockport has a special place in my heart, and this book brings new light to a beautiful, stunning town with many unique places to visit. Check out my playlist to go along with the book and the photos of the books in areas stated in the book. https://purposelyunperfect.com/sometimes-in-summer-review/

Thanks to TBR & Beyond Tours, Katrina Leno, Little, Brown and Company, and Netgalley for my free copy of Sometimes in Summer. All opinions are my own.

It's hard for me to review this book because I'm just not the intended audience. I read a ton of YA, and I absolutely loved Katrina Leno's Summer of Salt, so I went into this one not knowing much about it. I didn't realize until I started reading that the protagonist is fourteen and this feels like it's at the much younger end of YA. I wouldn't have read it if I had known. But putting that aside, I think Sometime in Summer is as wonderfully written as Summer of Salt.

I all the literary vibes in this book, and I loved the setting of summer in a seaside town. I also really appreciated how unconventional Anna's parents were. Her mom is an extreme bookworm who Anna describes as seeming almost magical, and her dad is covered in tattoos. I feel like there were so many rich details in this story and so much fun stuff for the author to play with. Her incredibly way with words definitely shone through here. I expected some sort of magical realism in this book with the way the mother is described and having read the author's previous book, but I didn't see the reveal coming too far ahead of time.

Ultimately, I feel like this was a super cute story and the target audience will probably get a lot out of it.

Sometime in Summer was a truly enchanting book! It’s been a while since I last read a book with a young protagonist ~ Anna is only 14, so reading about her was really refreshing! The storyline had a bookish theme that I absolutely adored! I loved the literary references, and the conversations surrounding books a lottttt. Mirium had a very Lorelai Gilmore vibe, and the mother-daughter relationship between Mirium and Anna reminded me of The Gilmore Girls countless times. Anna’s sass and sarcastic comments made me laugh my heart out 😂✨

The family dynamic in Sometime in Summer was really well-written too. The author expressed Anna’s feelings about her parents’ divorce in such a heartbreaking manner. I wanted to give her so many hugs along the way. And as this is a Katrina Leno book, there was a magical realism plot (DUH) that I fell head over heels for. :’)

If you’re looking for a heartfelt read, I highly recommend picking Sometime in Summer!

Rating- 4.5 stars

Characters

I really loved the characters in this book. Anna was a great main character, who was flawed, and had an interest in space. I love it when characters are interested in something I’ve always been interested in, but don’t know much about. Anna’s mom Miriam had a bookstore, and I loved seeing the books that she would recommend for people. Emmy and Beck were also fantastic characters that brought out the best in Anna as a character.

Plot

Sometime in Summer had a plot that was interesting, and kept me reading to see how the book was going to end. I loved the story, and I couldn’t wait to see where the story would go next. Anna has things in her life that trouble her, and it was interesting to see how she was going to figure out how she was going to go about solving what she was dealing with.

Writing

The writing in this novel was fantastic. I love how Katrina Leno used a style that was familiar to YA readers, and it still packed a punch. Sometime in Summer was filled with both light-hearted scenes. The light tone of the story enhanced these scenes because you could tell that the characters were having fun during these scenes. This novel also looked at some heavier topics, like finding new friends, and misunderstandings that occur when you’re a teenager. These more intense scenes had a dramatic tone, one where you could tell that the characters were learning from their mistakes, and they were growing for the better. The writing in this novel was fantastic, and I want to read more from this author.

Friendship

Sometime in Summer was more about friendships than it was about romance. The friendships in this novel were fantastic, and I loved seeing how the characters changed from the start of the book. We follow Anna after a falling out with one of her best friends, and not the spoil the end of the book, but the ending of the book for these two characters was so sweet, and I just loved it. While staying on the east coast with her mother for the summer, Anna meets Beck and Emmy, and the three of them also form a friendship bond. Mistakes were a common thread between the two friendship groups, but the end of the book brought both groups back together, and it was such a sweet ending to the story for me.

Recommended for /Enjoyment

I really enjoyed this story. For me, Sometime In Summer was a mixture of of the fun, and light-hearted vibes of summer, while also taking a hard look at the fact that teenagers can make mistakes, and have miscommunications just like adults can. I recommend this book to fans of the YA genre.

What didn’t work for me

Pace

The only reason why this was only a 4.5star read for me was the pace. Some the book was slow for me, and I wanted the story to move a bit. I wanted some parts of the book to be discussed more, and then there are parts of the book that I thought could be discussed a little less.

Throughout Sometime in Summer, Leno explores this idea of luck and fate. Of destiny that puts us right where we need to be and the concept of making our own luck. There's this tenuous balance between our agency and then just plain old fate. I love that Sometime in Summer is perfect for fans of younger YA which handles friendship drama and family schisms. It is going to be just the perfect book for teens who want to read up and discover a book that is about when to save and when to let go.

With a strong mother daughter relationship at its core - and tons of bookworms - Sometime in Summer is a book that sneaks up on you. At about halfway point, when some pretty interesting things begin to slot in place, I realized I was entirely obsessed. When you get there, you'll know what I mean, but there are tons of surprises in store.

This one is a major case of its not the book, it's me. Because this one combines almost all of my least favorite things.

1st thing: (view spoiler). I wish I could rant about this piece to everyone, but it's a major spoiler, so sadly, I cannot.

2nd thing: The age group it caters to. I can read middle grade fantasy, but I can't read middle grade contemporary. I'm not the group who's supposed to read it, and it shows. From the beginning, I was irritated by the characters' immaturity and actions.

3rd thing: The length of it. This should not have been 400 pages. It was a major slog, with very little action. It mainly consisted of our main character (I already forgot her name) wandering around, being a bitch, and then wandering around again. I didn't even like her, so I definitely didn't like the book.

I will say, the coastal setting was kinda fun, along with the bookstore. The rest of this was severely lacking though. Not my book, and not one I ever want to look at again.

Thanks to TBR Beyond Tours for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review

This was a pretty cute book but it wasn't groundbreaking or brought anything new to the table. It dragged at times and I think it honestly could've been better if it was shorter. Anna, who is our main character, felt younger than 14 at times and she didn't truly get any character development until the last 50 pages or so and by then it felt rushed.

The few things I enjoyed were the family dynamic and the plot twist, which I'm not going to say in order not to spoil anybody.

I think younger kids (middle graders) will enjoy this more than the actual YA that it is geared to.

This is a sweet summer YA, coming of age story with a touch of magical realism. Anna is a 14-year-old girl who is trying to deal with her parents’ divorce, the closing of her mother’s bookstore and a the lost of her friendship with her best friend. It’s the perfect summer read set in a beach town filled with magic, and a comet in the sky. I’m not a big fan of magical realism, but the author did an amazing job, and it worked perfectly in the book. I really enjoyed it! I loved Anna’s character and seeing her cope and deal with her problems.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this novel. 3.5/5 stars.

I didn't realize this was the same author who did Summer of Salt, so I should have expected some element of magical realism...and well...it's there but it caught me off guard? a lot? I don't want to spoil it, but I felt like it kind of ruined the vibes in the book. Sure, it helped Anna realize she was being self-centered and ignoring everyone else's concerns, but I also don't think that's a problematic trait when Anna is FOURTEEN. Like, why are we expecting her to have the world figured out? I'm also not sure why the book started with such a heavy emphasis on her period being a part of her life...but like, also s/o for the rep.

Anyways, I did enjoy the book up until the twist. I thought it was an accurate look at a 14 year old coming to terms with a divorce with her parents, their store selling, and a lot of changes while also being forced on the east coast for two months of the summer. I also googled Rockport, and now I want to visit.

The narration was annoying at some point, and I liked how there was a booknerd element to it as well...but the twist just REALLY ruined the immersion in the novel. I'm all for magical realism, but it just felt...weird? I'm not sure how else to review it without spoiling it so...good book, could have been better.