Review: That Summer

That Summer by Sarah Dessen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5/5 stars.

This was my first ever audiobook; and I finished listening to it within 1 day. I speed it up to 1.5x, because I find Americans are quite slow at talking.

A few thoughts on the format itself;

wonderful speaker, however I'm really confused why everybody but Haven had a bloody southern accent??? She had a more western, Valley accent, which left me in hysterics when I heard every southerner accent. Also, when the speaker read the NY accents, I shed a few tears of laughter, as earlier this year I spent 6 weeks in NYC, and know this accent was priceless.

It sounded super Aussie. And that's coming from an Aussie. I think the speaker had a nice drawl for it; but how she pronounced the 'r''s was very Aussie.

Okay, review of the plot:

Absolutely amazing. Extremely witty, with great heartfelt, adolsescent revelations. So relatable.

I was feeling disturbed 80% of the time, which incapsulates that stage we all go through at some point in our teen lives (I think there was a quote about how Haven finally felt her inner self grow into her extremely tall body, which I relate so freaking much to). However, I was the most disturbed whenever Haven thought or conversed with Sumner, in anyway.

Especially since it was being whispered into my ears from my audiobook...

I felt like Haven had a mighty crush on Sumner, and it was immediately dismissed at the end, because (view spoiler)[he had cheated on her older sister like 7 years (or whenever) prior (hide spoiler)].....

So that was odd, but I thoroughly enjoyed every part. I think I liked it more as an audiobook, I'm also currently reading (in paper) , which I'm not really enjoying. I need the lively voices to help keep me interested. If not, I think for both texts I'd be quite bored (they have a middle-grade feel to them, IMO).

The angst was perfectly written, and I felt like I was watching the OC or something else from the early 2000s, and that was really enjoyable. The audiobook didn't tell me when it was published, I figured around 2007 (it's actually 2003, which doesn't seem like a lot, until you count the facts like major entertainment for teenagers ie Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, didn't exist), and it was so refreshing to not have the cliche 'social media conflict' within an angsty, coming of age YA novel.

Loved this story! It's still a 4.5/5 stars. For me, if it had more romance (and less creepy feelings of a 21 y.o. chatting up a 15 y.o.) and more mature (possibly a 17-18 y.o. protag instead of a newly turned 15 y.o.), it would definitely be a 5/5 stars :)
</["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]></["br"]>

View all my reviews