Book Review: Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

When I opened this book and started reading it I knew it was exactly what I wanted and was searching for. I needed a book that would make me cry, a book that would speak to me and a book that would make me feel. This book did all the above and more.

Every Summer After is written in such a powerful voice that it gripped me from the start. The story is very character driven and you really see the maturity (or lack off) the characters have and how they mold through age. The story is told in two timelines, the past when Persephone and Sam meet during the summer and they keep meeting until they grow apart and break up, and the present when they meet again because Sam's mother has passed away and Percy comes back for the funeral. Sam and Percy fell in love when they were kids and the naivety in those first chapters was precious and you could feel the love between the two characters grow and mold and break. The break was unbearable and heart breaking and all messy.

Usually I hate when there is a big "cheating" episode or when one of the characters really messes things up and doesn't apologize. However, I don't know if it was how the big reveal was written or the way it impacted the characters or how it made sense so I saw it coming that actually made me enjoy it ? Obviously it made me mad and furious but also it made me feel for the messy love story these characters built, it made me feel for Percy and how she was immature to handle the distance and how she in turn made a mistake. The past and the present voices help to see the way their decisions affected their lives and how they suffered for it.

It is one of those books that grips at you because it's not perfect, it is raw and utterly imperfect but its real.

Overall rating: 5 stars