Author: Amanda Howells
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire (an imprint of Sourcebooks Inc.)
Pages: 295
Read Time: 1 day
Rating (1-5): 3
Tag Words: summer, first love, family dysfunction, death, memories, the beach, socialites
My Summary:
When Mia arrives at the Hamptons to spend a wonderful summer with her beloved cousin, the daughter of the perfect family, she is surprised to discover that things have changed. Corinne has become spoiled and cold, and the family that Mia believed was perfect is unraveling before her eyes. Only Simon, the new boy on the beach is different from the rest; he is passionate, an artist and Mia has caught his eye. If Mia accepts Simon she’ll be in for a summer she never saw coming.
My Review:
This is a really bland book for me, I having nothing terrible to say, but I won’t be singing Summer’s praises either.
Someone else may read the book and see something amazing, something that really speaks to them, but for me I wasn’t over the moon. I read it fast, though the last hundred pages or so was a push. I didn’t like any of the characters and felt that they didn’t go anyway within the story, it’s in the epilogue that Howells gives us a “where are they now.” I felt like Mia and Simon were a summer romance, there really wasn’t anything amazing about the two of them together, eventually, they would have broken up.
The plot is completely cliché and one-dimensional, and the writing sometimes felt a bit too forced. It was as if Howells was stretching to compensate for lack of a greater purpose. I felt like the read was very phony, as if someone poured Sarah Dessen, Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and Gossip Girl into a blender- mix well- and out popped The Summer of Skinny Dipping for your marketing pleasure. Maybe that's unfair, but Skinny Dipping wasn't anything I hadn't read before.
Notes on the Names: Very cool names, but it’s just a bit much that Simon called Mia, 'Daisy' by chance when they first met.
Thoughts on the Cover: This is a great book cover, it captures the feeling of the book, it’s marketable, but the model looks too much like the super-skinny Hampton twigs Mia railed against. What is wrong with a curvy girl on the beach, or on a cover, I ask you?
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