Review: Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler.

Main Character: Anna Reily, Matt & Frankie Perino, Sam Macintosh.

Series: None

"Don't worry, Anna. I'll tell her, okay? Just let me think about the best way to do it."
"Okay."
"Promise me? Promise you won't say anything?"
"Don't worry." I laughed. "It's our secret, right?"

According to her best friend Frankie, twenty days in ZanzibarBay is the perfect opportunity to have a summer fling, and if they meet one boy ever day, there's a pretty good chance Anna will find her first summer romance. Anna lightheartedly agrees to the game, but there's something she hasn't told Frankie---she's already had that kind of romance, and it was with Frankie's older brother, Matt, just before his tragic death one year ago.

Beautifully written and emotionally honest, this is a debut novel that explores what it truly means to love someone and what it means to grieve, and ultimately, how to make the most of every single moment this world has to offer.

I first saw this book reviewed around the blog and thought that it was something that I had to read so when I drove out to Palm Springs to see my bestest blogging buddy Ames who came out here from Canada, I knew that this was the book that I was going to purchase when we went book shopping. It was just one of those books that I had to have.

And I'm glad that I bought it.

It starts off great, we're introduced to Anna, Frankie and Matt. The three amigos. Frankie and Matt are brother and sister, Anna's their next door and best friend. Matt's two years older than both Frankie and Anna (who are the same age) and on Anna's birthday, he makes his move which thrills Anna to no end. They embark on a secret romance until they figure out how they're going to tell Frankie, Matt's sister and Anna's girl best friend. Matt decides on telling her once they touch down at Zanzabar Beach, in California where Matt and Frankie were going on their annual family summer vacation.

Only, Matt never gets the chance to do that since the day before they were scheduled to leave for California, Matt and the girls are in a car accident and Matt dies.

The book focuses on what happens after the accident. It focuses on the promises Anna made to Matt about protecting Frankie and it focuses on moving on after you've lost someone you love dearly.

On the front cover of this book, Jo Knowles (author of Lessons from a Dead Girl) sums up exactly how I feel about this book. She said about the book, "Breaks your heart and puts it back together again" and I couldn't agree with her more. That's exactly how it was for me. Once Matt died, my heart was broken and Ockler did a fantastic job of putting my heart back together again. I had to put the book down for a couple of days because I was that heart broken. I didn't want to meet another person, I didn't want to move on from Matt because in the short time that I knew him (well, you know what I mean), I loved him. To know him was to love him and when he was gone from the story, I didn't know what to do with myself.

I'm glad that I stuck with this because I loved getting to know Anna Reilley. She was young, she was strong and she was a good friend. She struggled with moving on herself because she was so in love with Matt and while we got to see Anna be there for Frankie and even Frankie's parents after Matt's death- Anna had to grieve for her best friend and almost boyfriend all on her own. I realized that Frankie and her parents all missed Matt and needed time to get over him in their own way but Anna missed him too. She loved him just as much as his entire family did and I wanted someone to be there for her.

That summer, the twenty boy summer changed Anna's life just as much as having and losing Matt did and I enjoyed the helluva ride that Ockler took us on. There were times that I wanted to punch Frankie in the mouth for all of the idiotic things that she did to Anna, the hurtful things she said to Anna but in the end, all was well and that's what mattered to me. There weren't any loose ends, they dealt with everything head on after so much time spent, keeping secrets and not talking about anything and in the end, they were better for it.

This is one heck of a book and I'm super glad that I read it. I'm very much looking forward to reading other books by Sarah Ockler so for sure, you'll be seeing more of her on this blog. This was a great summer read, I totally recommend it.

This book is suitable for children ages 14 and up. So Holly, LG can read this one.

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Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com