Summer I Found You

by Jolene Perry

[Leah]

I really wanted to love The Summer I Found You. It has such a gorgeous cover, and the synopsis sounded so intriguing and I loved the fact that Aidan wasn’t a regular YA hero. He was flawed, he’s come back from Afghanistan with one less arm, and is having to deal with everything that encompasses going to war. And I really, really liked Aidan. I liked seeing his journey, I liked the fact he had a lot of stuff to deal with and I enjoyed seeing him deal with it, and try to move on with his life now that he’s no longer a soldier.

Initially I even liked Kate, although her fawning over Shelton drove me nuts. She was cute, though, and I liked that when she and Aidan first meet she literally says anything, including “What does the other guy look like” in regards to Aidan’s missing arm. It was a bit thoughtless, but it also showed that she didn’t care about his missing arm, and wouldn’t tiptoe around it. My problem came with the whole diabetes thing. I’ve never seen someone have such a blase attitude towards a disease as serious as diabetes. Who CARES if you carry a pharmacy in your bag so long as you’re healthy? Considering what Aidan is going through, a little diabetes is hardly a world-ender, not to compare their problems or make it whose problem is worse. But when you hear about Aidan’s friend dying next to him, it sort of made me feel that Kate was just being stupid with regards to her disease.

I get it, it’s probably not cool to stick needles in yourself or have people know your business, but I’d rather everyone know my business then pass out or get super dizzy. Because there was just no need for that. It just got me SO FRUSTRATED. Literally boiling with rage. It completely ruined my enjoyment of seeing her and Aidan get closer and closer, because all I could think about was the fact she was playing with fire with her insulin and stuff.

I wanted a really fun summer read – the cover promises as much, but it wasn’t that and while I really appreciated learning more about Aidan and everything he’s been through, Kate was just too silly and immature for me to really love this book.