Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

Title: Twenty Boy Summer
Author: Sarah Ockler
Published: June 1, 2009 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Pages: 290/Hardcover
Source: local library


Summary: 
"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.

Review: I was very worried about reading this book. It took me about a year to finally decide to read it. I have nothing against emotional books, but I have a really hard time reading tragic love stories. I'm pretty much what you would call a hopeless romantic. I believe in the happy ending and want every book to end that way. So after reading the summary for Twenty Boy Summer I was very worried about reading this book, but I shouldn't have been.

Yes this book is emotional and, I guess you could say, tragic. But Ockler has a way of writing that you feel the pain of the characters. You know what they're going through even if you've never lost someone. Yet she does it all without making you an emotional wreck like the characters. 

I cared about all of these characters. I don't think I'll ever forget a characters that was written by Sarah Ockler, yet I really only got a connection with Anna. Maybe because the book's from her point of view or because it's focused n her hidden pain. I loved seeing the transformations that each character took as they either found out about Matt's death or were getting over his death.

There's a lot more I wish I could say about Twenty Boy Summer, but this is one of those books that you can't really describe its emotional awesomeness (or its general awesomeness) and what you can describe seems very inadequate. So my only advice is to go out and read it. And remember that happy ending I wanted? Ockler managed to create an ending that wasn't happy per se but was satisfying, realistic, and maybe had a bit of happiness to it.


More Books by Sarah Ockler
Fixing Delilah