Review: The Summer of Skinny Dipping by Amanda Howell.

Main Character: Mia
Love Interest: Simon
Series: Summer of Skinny Dipping, Book 1
Author: Website|Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads

Sometimes I still wake up shivering in the early hours of the morning, drowning in dreams of being out there in the ocean that summer, of looking up at the moon and feeling as invisible and free as a fish. But I'm jumping ahead, and to tell the story right I have to go back to the very beginning. To a place called Indigo Beach. To a boy with pale skin that glowed against the dark waves. To the start of something neither of us could have predicted, and which would mark us forever, making everything that came after and before seem like it belonged to another life.

My name is Mia Gordon: I was sixteen years old, and I remember everything.

This book was a surprising read for me. Surprising because I shouldn't have liked it. I'm all about the happy ending and because this didn't have the kind of ending that I'm used to, I should have hated it...but I didn't.

Over the course of this book, I fell in love with the idea of two people finding each other and falling in love over the summer and when it ended and my heart was broken, I couldn't help but look back over this book with a smile because Simon was that good. I loved everything about Simon, from the way that he wormed his way into Mia's life and through the way that he changed the way she saw the world forever.

Mia was looking forward to getting away from her life for a few months at the beach with family because she's suffering from a broken heart and some time away with her cousins that she hasn't seen in ages seems like it would be a good thing. It'll be just like old times when the family would get together. She'd hang out with her cousins and make new memories only that doesn't happen because when she gets to the Hamptons, her cousins are too cool for school and she's on her own for the summer. Something she wasn't looking forward to.

But then Simon enters the picture and turns things around for her. They begin this friendship that shapes Mia's thoughts about herself and her life. The relationship that blossomed between her and Simon is one for the books. It was the perfect summer romance that every girl should have. He came into her life and showed her that being her wasn't a bad thing. He embraced everything about Mia and helped Mia do the same thing with herself.

I loved Simon. I really wish that I could have summered in the Hamptons and met my own Simon when I was in high school but my parents don't run in the same circles as Mia's parents or family for that matter but I still turned out alright in the end. The first time that I read this book, I thought it was going to be this fun, flirty and light story but it wasn't. It was so much more than that and I think fans of YA fiction will fall in love with this story the same way that I did. It's a great summer read and I definitely recommend it.

..and that's your scoop!

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