It's Not Summer Without You

It's Not Summer Without You
by Jenny Han
Summer Novels, book two

Can summer be truly summer without Cousins Beach?

It used to be that Belly counted the days until summer, until she was back at Cousins Beach with Conrad and Jeremiah. But not this year. Not after Susannah got sick again and Conrad stopped caring. Everything that was right and good has fallen apart, leaving Belly wishing summer would never come.

But when Jeremiah calls saying Conrad has disappeared, Belly knows what she must do to make things right again. And it can only happen back at the beach house, the three of them together, the way things used to be. If this summer really and truly is the last summer, it should end the way it started--at Cousins Beach. (description taken from Amazon.com)

The first book in this series, The Summer I Turned Pretty, was achingly beautiful and left me hoping beyond hope for a sequel. I was soooooo excited when I knew It's Not Summer Without You was coming out...and now that I've read it, I CANNOT wait for this coming summer and the final book, We'll Always Have Summer.

These are the best realistic fiction books! Belly is a great protagonist. Unsure of herself, yet true to her instincts. Her life is enriched by her two longest friends...brothers, Jeremiah and Conrad. Her life is also...well, complicated...by her relationship with each brother.

What I loved about this second book was getting to see portions from Jeremiah's perspective. I have to be honest and say that I LOVE Jeremiah...have from the start. That being said, I totally understood what happened at the end of the first book, but I also understood why things went the way they did in this book...cryptic, no? :P

This book made me laugh, it made me cry...it broke my heart and sewed it up again. Well worth reading...again and again and again...