Thank you Sourcebooks Casablanca and Netgalley for my copy. I wanted to like this book- the plot sounded adorable and fun! However, the writing felt really off pace and sloppy to me. It was difficult to connect with the characters because of it and I ended up DNF.

Thank you to SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for a review.

Ivy Green is an up and coming screenwriter who wrote a script based on her past relationship with Nick, who broke up with her right before Christmas. As filming begins in her small town, Ivy is forced to come to terms with her true feelings for Nick.

My thoughts: I was initially sucked in to this one based solely on the cover, and a story about Christmas in summer. The synopsis sounded right up my alley, and that’s about the most promising part of it.

What I liked: Ivy’s desire to accomplish her goals. Second chance romance and childhood lovers are my favorites. It was a fairly quick read, and had great side characters.

What didn’t work for me:
I am not a fan of the miscommunication troupe generally speaking but this one was beyond me, it was cringe worthy at best.

I am not an author, and I know writing what’s in your heart and putting it out in the world has got to me scary! But the writing in this was disjointed, and didn’t feel complete.
Thank you @netgalley and @sourcebooks for this ebook in exchange for an honest review!

This was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, but it ended up being SO. INCREDIBLY. BAD. The writing is messy, the characters are were boring with pretty much zero development and it was all just way too predictable. I finished it, but barely.

Okay, so I wanted to love this book, I really really did. But, it felt juvenile to me. There were so many things I really did love about Ivy, our MC, but there were also so many times that I sat here shaking my head at the choices she makes. I was expecting a sweet Christmas themed rom-com, featuring an MC close to my own age, and I felt like I was reading a book about a high school student. I loved that Ivy was a screen writer, I can't say I've ever read a book featuring an MC that had that job title. It was fun to sort of see what the behind the scenes at a Hollywood promotion may be, but in the end, it wasn't enough for me to enjoy the story. 2.5 stars rounded up.

I will say, I listened to the audiobook along with reading the ebook and I really did enjoy the narrator - that was the saving grace for me.

I had to stop reading this book before they could even shoot the movie - I was overwhelmed with cringe and hated the fatphobic and harmful dialog about the ever present need to diet. I get that we’re dealing with Hollywood here, but each of these instances could have been cut without changing the subject matter around it.

I couldn’t root for any of the characters I was presented with, and I expected better. My bad for thinking this cover housed a book I’d love.

There were a lot of storylines within this book which is why I'm rating it 3 stars. It was an okay read for me. There were some funny parts but it just fell a bit short for me. It's a good option for a Christmas in July buddy read but beyond that you may find it disappointing.

I had such a hard time getting into the Summer of Christmas. The pacing was really off for me and I couldn't connect with any of the characters, so I didn't really care what was happening to them, so I didn't want to read about them. I think the plot could have been interesting and I think there are definitely people who would love this book, but it wasn't for me.

I’m a huge holiday book fan, and this cover had me so, so excited! While it was cute, it was a little too cheesy for me. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it - it just didn’t quite hit the mark for me, but that’s okay!!

Thank you to Juliet and Keith Giglio, Netgalley, and Sourcebooks Casablanca for the opportunity to read and review this title!

This was just a complete mess. The writing was bad, the characters were cardboard, and it's not hard to hear the pretentious tone whenever anything vaguely industry-related comes up, as if the average reader is completely ignorant about the movie industry.

The cute cover tricked me into reading this one. This had no business having such a cute cover. But it definitely could've done with some more editing.

Sadly this one wasn’t for me. I absolutely adore Christmas but this was a miss. The characters seem really immature, the writing wasn’t great and confusing at times.

The cover though is adorable!

The Summer of Christmas is basically a Hallmark Christmas rom-com in book form. You have the typical woman from a small town working in the big city who by circumstance goes back to her small town and ends up with her childhood sweetheart. Despite all of the cliche, it's an entertaining read that's laugh out loud funny at times while conforming to the genre.

I liked the premise of this book when I read it but unfortunately it didn’t live up to its potential. I loved the Christmas in the Summer idea, but the characters are shallow, and the dialogue was more YA than adult romance. This book just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed as in this review are completely my own.

If there is this one season I absolutely love, that's christmas. So I was extremely excited to start reading christmas-y kind of books specially this early in the year.

That said, everything ahead is based solely on my opinion. Thank you so much Netgalley and the publisher for the chance of reading the e-arc.

Was it cute? Yes kind of. I mean, I felt for Ivy's struggles, yet didn't completely make me love the romantic aspect.

Plus, I must admit I'm not that big of a fan of the writers’ writing style. I'm still not sure if I just set the bar up to high or if in fact, the plot wasn't developed to its full potential.

Also in that sense, was it just me or did it all remind me of the way plays are written? At times it felt like it was written under that pace or maybe it was just me.

I wanted to love this one so much!

A second chance romance on the set of a Christmas movie being filmed in July AND an adorable hot pink cover? This one hit so many of my checkboxes that I completely expected to love it! But I just....didn't.

Let's cut right to the chase and say that my biggest problem with this book was the writing style. Even after reading it I still think the premise holds so much promise, I just don't think it was executed as well as it could have been. The story was told in third person, which is fine, but the narrative was jumpy and would cut between characters in a very choppy way that didn't work for me. Another issue I had was that the prose included bare minimum description, and I mean bare minimum. An example of this is the line "She looked devastated", which broke the cardinal rule of writing, "show don't tell".

When I finished the book I did some digging and discovered that the authors are actually screenwriters and this is their first novel. As soon as I read this, my issues with the writing style made sense. Screenplays don't need to include a lot of description because you're meant to see it on the screen! I also think the choppiness between different character's point of views would have worked better on the screen than it did on the page.

If this book were to be adapted into a movie, I definitely think I would watch it. As I said earlier, the story premise has so much promise but the execution wasn't it. Juliet and Keith Giglio are credited as writers on multiple Christmas movies of the cheesy variety (my faves) and Return to Halloweentown, another franchise I love, leading me to think I just enjoy their stories more in the cinematic form.

Thank you to Netgalley, SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca, and Juliet & Keith Giglio for providing me with an e-ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Have you ever read a book and something just didn’t jive while you were reading it? That’s what happened while I was reading The Summer of Christmas.

The storyline was super cute - a heartbroken screenwriter, Ivy Green, writes a mostly autobiographical movie script about how her long-time boyfriend breaks up with her at Christmastime.

However, when that script gets picked up to be made into a movie and is filming in her hometown, where her ex still lives, love triangles ensue.

I really live the kitschy Christmas in July vibes in the story, and the small town feel and the found family in the movie crew. But the writing was a tough to read. Once I realized the authors were screenwriters and this is their debut novel, a lot of the weirdness in the writing made sense. It was definitely written more like a script than a novel.

Not that it is a pass for the writers, because this was still really awkward to read. There were lots of chapters that flipped back and forth between Ivy and Nick with transitions like, “Back on the boat” and “back on the movie set.”

This would definitely have been a cute Hallmark Christmas movie - something the authors’ style of writing would fit better.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Casablanca and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

There's a lot of Hollywood terms, phrases, etc., so if you're unaware of them, you may want to look some up, to possibly take a bit of confusion out of the book.

I'm all for "Christmas in July", I read a couple Christmas books in July and I have a CD made of my favorite songs, by a particular singer, so I was all pumped up for this book! But sadly I was disappointed in the book.

A handful of years ago Nick and Ivy are together, been together since high school and throughout college. It had become a long distance relationship, they visited each other through college, and on one of Nick's visit to Ivy she's all excited! Excited for their future and has made a future plan for them only to discover that Nick is breaking up!

For the next five years Ivy is struggling, in Hollywood, on her screen writing, and is about to give up and go crawling back home. She does take one more chance and writes an autobiographical of hers and Nicks life together. But nobody has an interest in it. She meets a producer, Drew, and Ivy learns that her title, "When Joseph Meets Mary", gave everybody the impression it was a Biblical story, so sadly they all tossed it aside or away, so no replies. She explained the story to Drew, when they met, and he went to dig it out, read it and loved it, and wants to put it on the big screen, in her hometown, Geneva NY!

This is where it goes downhill for me. At this point in reality, writers are out the picture and producers, directors, and crews, take over. Ivy was so persistent on being there, behind the camera with them. I do get it though, it's about her life and she wants it be as real as possible. Here you have Ivy's agent by phone, you meet the director, producer, lead actress, lead actor, the rest of the crew, Nick, both families, and pretty much the rest of her hometown. I did like Ivy's parents a little, but they pass on private info and things about Ivy, things she didn't write in the script. If Ivy wanted these things to be known, she would have put it in there! Her sister, is in the psychiatry field was pretty much trying to do her job while out of office, to the people and it was a total eye roller for me. In my opinion, she was quite annoying and in all honesty, the ONLY character I really liked was Griffin.

Besides the constant scatter and sometimes confusion of characters along with the childish drama, throughout the book, the ending kind of disappointed me also. It was like the writers had idea items on a list, but forgot to put a few things somewhere else in the book, so they crammed them in the last few chapters, leaving a bad ending to me.

The only reason this book received a third star was the town set up. The details of Christmas, I could picture it. Houses had Christmas lights and decorations, inside and out. Businesses got involved and went all out, fake snow, it made the scenes that you could picture and feel as reading.

Thank you NetGalley and Source books Casablanca for the opportunity to read the book for an honest review.

This had the potential to being a fun story but, unfortunately, the writing didn't flow well and distracted me from the story. I enjoyed the premise of the plot itself but this really needed a lot of editing.

This book sucked me in with it’s cute book covers. And yet, it disappointed me. I truly thought that this book was going to be a second chance romance with the small town ambience. It was more of a messy read. Too much drama for no reason. I could not understand why so much drama was happening. It was truly unnecessary. It took away the main point of the story. And I also felt that the main character should have been alone instead of going back to her former flame.

This is a fun quick read that gives Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movie vibes. Similar to one of those Christmas movies the plot was fairly predictable though there were a few aspects I wasn’t expecting. I would have liked if a few of the side characters had more of a role and character development. I would have liked to see Griffin’s story especially a little more and would have liked to learn more about Ivy’s family and Nick's mom. I also would have liked a little more character development from the main characters as well.

The drama sometimes felt like it was going in circles and if people would have acted like adults and had conversation some of the drama could have been avoided.

Apparently the authors used to be screenwriters which surprised me because some of the movie stuff felt inaccurate such as location scouting the day before filming. They decided to film at the train station and then filmed there the next day. Maybe its different with small towns but I know in many places if you are filming in a public area you must pull a permit with the city which would most likely take longer than a day. I also felt like a few of the film terms that were explained didn’t need to be explained such as the midpoint of the plot. I feel like that term is fairly self-explanatory. Some I did think were necessary for people not familiar with the TV or movie industry.

Even with its faults this was still a fun quick read. Overall, this was a 3.5 for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.