Book Review: Every Summer After by Carley Fortune
A summer book with love, betrayal, and of course, secrets holding the couple apart. Check out my full review of Every Summer After by Carley Fortune below!
Book Information
To Percy, Barry’s Bay is home. Or, at least, it used to be home before she screwed everything up. Sam used to be her home, but she ruined everything. Told in alternating timelines between before Percy left Barry’s Bay and after when she finally decides to come back. Now that she’s returned, she wants more than ever to fix things with Sam. She’s just not sure it can ever be right between them again.
Review | Heidi Dischler
Alright. I wanted to like this book. I really did. I think, though, it falls directly into my meh category. Not great, not horrible, just mediocre. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the main reason is that I absolutely despised the two main characters. If I had to compare it to something, it would be like The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy, just not as good.
Let me just get this out of the way now. Sam? He was toxic as hell. Like, excuse me sir, I’m supposed to want to root for you. Not hate you. Percy was toxic too for a lot of different reasons (I’ll get into that more in the spoilers). But with disliking the main characters really didn’t set this book up for success in my opinion.
What I did like, though, was the descriptions in the book as well as the writing. Carley Fortune’s writing was descriptive and immersive. It’s just the characters and plot that lacked a lot.
With the plot, it was sadly just a little too predictable for me. There were one or two moments where I was like, well, thank goodness, that’s refreshing. For the most part, though, I was bored.
Spoilers ahead.
Okay, so Sam and his toxicity? Like WHAT? Only talk once a week while he was at his stupid camp? Like, boy, are you dumb? That was not okay. He kept throwing Percy around and messing with her. I absolutely despised him. No wonder she turned to Charlie for comfort.
And Percy and her toxicity? GIRL. Why the hell did you literally slut-shame your own best friend when all she did was support you???? I am FURIOUS. She never apologized. Never. I can’t even about this whole entire thing.
In my opinion, Charlie should’ve been the main character. He always supported Percy. Never made her feel forgotten or not good enough. I would’ve liked this a lot more if Percy ended up with him….
Overall, I really don’t see the hype around this book. It was predictable and infuriating because of the main characters. If I honestly had to rate it, it would be two and a half stars. Rounded up to three for Goodreads and Amazon.
Source: Audiobook from Libby Public Library
(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)
