Twenty Boy Summer

by Sarah Ockler

For sixteen-year-olds Anna Reiley and Frankie Perino, their twenty day-long, minimally supervised California vacation will be the 'Absolute Best Summer Ever' and according to Frankie, if they meet one boy every day, there's a pretty good chance that Anna will get her first real boyfriend.

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.

Written in lyrical, accessible prose, this is a debut novel that explores what it truly means to love someone and what it truly means to grieve, and perhaps most importantly, how to make the most of every single moment this world has to offer.

• ISBN10: 031605321X
• ISBN13: 9780316053211
• Publish Date: 1 June 2009
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

There were so many heartbreaking things in this story. A sister lost a brother. Two parents lost a child. But, it was Anna, who I really felt for. She and Matt had just moved from being best friends to something more, but he died before they had the opportunity to define it. She was left with a myriad of "what ifs", and she had to struggle with all that on her own.

This book may be called "Twenty Boy Summer", but it was really about love, loss, secrets, and grief, which filled me with equal parts warmth and pain, which I found very touching.

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[Bianca]

Like the stars, fading with the halo of the vanishing moon. Like the ocean, falling and whispering against the shore. Nothing ever really goes away -- it just changes into something else. Something beautiful.

[rakesandrogues]

During the summer, I recommended TWENTY BOY SUMMER by Sarah Ockler to my sister because I’d seen it around the blogosphere. She likes the summer romance young adult novels – ones that I’m not too fond of. But since my dystopian hangover – caused by reading too many dystopian novels, most recently Fuse by Julianna Baggott – I thought it was about time to take a break and read something different. I took a break from the dreary New York weather and vacationed in the California summer with protagonist, Anna in TWENTY BOY SUMMER.

Anna is secretly in love with her best friend’s brother, Matt, who also happened to be her other best friend. When Matt finally kisses her on her 15th birthday, Anna is ecstatic. But just before Anna and Matt can tell his sister about their relationship, Matt dies from a heart defect. One year later, Anna travels with Frankie to Zanzibar Bay, California with her family in hopes to overcome their grief.

My main frustration in TWENTY BOY SUMMER by Sarah Ockler is this twenty boy contest that the book revolves around. I know that Frankie is dealing with the loss of her brother by basically rebelling with booze and boys. But I really don’t like it. I guess I just never saw the appeal of summer romances and excessive flirting. It made me constantly want to roll my eyes.

But I admit, Sarah Ockler has a knack for kissing scenes.

If it weren’t for the fact that TWENTY BOY SUMMER is border-line tear-jerker, then I probably would not have enjoyed this book. When Ockler gets to the more serious parts of the novel, she does not back down. I found myself getting choked up whenever the girls finally confront their grief.

What I wish TWENTY BOY SUMMER focused more on was the relationship between Aunt Jayne and Anna. Aunt Jayne seems to have a better understanding of Anna than anyone else in the novel. It’s a shame that we only get a short glimpse of how Aunt Jayne sees her. In general, I wish that the parents weren’t as oblivious as they were. While they tried to spend quality time with Frankie and Anna, I feel like they were still always avoiding the topic of Matt.

However, I do think that Ockler made a great point towards the end of the novel that at the end of the day, everyone has to deal with their grief in their own way. Everyone is a little different when it comes to dealing with the grief of losing a loved one.

[Kelly]

3.5 Stars.
Sarah Ockler is a poetic writer, her descriptive style puts you within the story, almost as a bystander watching the action. Her older teen novels are light and breezy, but could be seen as shallow for the more mature Y.A reader.
Still a charming coming of age read on life, death and healing. Not to mention boys.