content warnings: cancer, death of parent (prior to story), medical content, suicide (prior to story)

with the return of her mom’s cancer comes the crumbling of constants in lucy hansson’s life: her boyfriend, her faith, and her longtime summer job at church camp. when lucy’s mom asks her to be a counselor at a summer camp for troubled kids. there, lucy finds loving and confident friends she strives to be more like, a stronger faith, and even some family secrets.

somehow, i had no idea this was about a christian girl when i went into this, so this aspect was a really nice surprise! as a christian, i love how lucy’s faith was depicted in the book. there are several instances of her praying and praising. her faith is also tested throughout the book, and i appreciated how she moved through this. lucy also grew a lot as a character, as she learns to be less judgmental and more confident as a camp counselor.

narration: the audiobook narrator, yinka ladeinde, had the perfect voice for this story! this really helped immerse me into lucy’s mind.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.* What a beautiful, poignant novel, that deals with some pretty tough issues in a delicate manner. The protagonist is a young woman named Lucy who is a star swimmer and a PK (preacher's kid). When her mother's cancer comes back, her parents decide to send her to help at a summer camp for children with difficult backgrounds. 'The Names They Give Us' is a YA novel, so it deals with typical teenage issues such as boyfriends, break ups and make up. However, it also delves so much deeper into issues facing teens today. An important and touching story.

I really struggle to grasp my true feelings about this book. Firstly, thank you to netgally for providing me with the arc for this audiobook! I think this was extremely well narrated and as someone who remembered reading this book when I was a teenager I was very excited to revisit it as an adult.

I did not remember that this book had any religious discussion in it at all, in fact if I had remembered that I never would have picked this up, my view of religion is possibly unfairly tainted by my life experiences. That said however, I think the balance in this book is expertly done.

The characters, friendships, and questioning of religion was super well done and I love a good summer camp setting. I don’t think that any of the teen lingo was heavy handed or annoying and I found the main character very relatable.

I think the only fumble here was the pacing and maybe the length? I think this book was too long, and at the same time I feel like it ended so abruptly I wasn’t ready for it and was still left with questions. If 50 pages of excess had been used to wrap up some of the lose ends I think this would be a easy to reconvened novel but as it currently stands I believe it would frustrate readers like it did myself.

When I read this as a teenager I rated it 5 stars and I remembered it super fondly even if I didn’t remember the actual plot. My current rating is 3 for the novel and 5 for the incredible narration! But I think it is important to note my original rating when I was the target for this particular novel.

I have many feelings about this book and all of them deep. It made you laugh and cry and question. The narrator did a fabulous job of bringing the characters to life that you feel submerged between the pages.
Maybe, as an author and a young adult reader, I would have done the ending a tad differently but I understand why it was done the way it was done. All in all, it’s a 3.89 star for me but I’m going to round up. 😉

I DNF'd this about halfway through. I had a lot of trouble keeping the various characters apart due to lack of differentiation on the narrator's part and flip-flopping of names in the text. I was intrigued by the main character's rage at the beginning of the novel, but it simmered away too quickly. As a young adult novel, I would say it is slightly below average.

I really enjoyed this book! It was insightful, heartbreaking, and encompassed several important issues.

This is the audiobook version of a book that was published in 2017. It is a heavy book told in one narrator's voice that worked for the female main character but was not distinctive enough to distinguish between all the side characters. I was glad to have the physical book to read along with.
This book would make a great jumping off point for very deep discussion about many of the things young adults are facing.

3.5⭐️ rounded down

I’ll start by saying that this book just wasn’t for me and it’s a me thing. While individually all of the topics should be a home run for me to read, I found it boring and “too much”.

I am guessing this title is being rereleased as the publication date for the audio “ARC” I received is the end of May 2024 yes the book is 7 years old. But I thank NetGalley and the publish for a chance to listen and give an honest review.

My issue is I kept falling asleep. The book didn’t stay engaging and maybe it’s due to the narrator? I don’t think it’s completely their fault, it’s just that the main character is just boring and whiney.

That being said, having many issues intersect is a great way for teens to learn about acceptance, especially with the intersection of religion and X situations. However, it was too much. It was as though the author had a check list of hot topics that they wanted to cram in. That’s not enjoyable reading nor realistic.

Many of the characters (besides our main one) are very rich and great characters. It’s a shame that Lucy had to dampen that all but it is what it is.

If you can get past the above, the book is probably a 4 insofar as the impact it could have on a person. So give it a go.. maybe not the audiobook though…

My rating system since GoodReads doesn’t have partial stars and I rarely round up.

⭐️ Hated it
⭐️⭐️ Had a lot of trouble, prose issues, really not my cup of tea (potentially DNF’d or thought about it)
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, it was an ok read but nothing special
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really enjoyed it! Would recommend to others
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Outstanding! Will circle back and read again