The Summer of Living Dangerously

by Julie Cohen

[Leah]

**2.5/5 stars**

Julie Cohen’s first non-Little Black Dress novel, Getting Away With It, was one of my absolute favourite reads of 2010. It was brilliant. It was captivating, warm, funny, and it really marked Julie as an author to keep an eye on. So it goes without saying that I was hoping her next novel would follow suit. Especially as the plot sounded so, so fascinating. Historical re-enactments aren’t something that usually appeals to me but I read Past Perfect by Laila Sales and thoroughly enjoyed the whole re-enactment business and was definitely looking forward to seeing how Julie Cohen put it across.

The trouble is that while The Summer of Living Dangerously is very easy to read, and I managed to complete it one afternoon on a rare day off, it just wasn’t as good or as captivating (in my opinion) as Getting Away With It. First off, I found it hard to keep up with the re-enactment as everyone was being someone else and as such we had to keep up with their real names and their re-enacting names. When your concentration level is below-par as mine most certainly is recently it is hard to keep up with who Alice is talking to and about. Also, the plot just wasn’t as interesting as I would have liked. The title talks of a ‘dangerous’ summer, and of living dangerously and it just seemed rather mundane, actually. Alice has some secrets she’s running away from, sure, but I just wasn’t surprised when all was revealed. It just seemed to be lacking a bit of a spark, if I’m honest. There was a love triangle that was never really a love triangle. I love love triangles, but neither Leo nor James really captured me in any way.

I suppose the novel just made me feel underwhelmed. It feels wrong to say this, as I’m sure Cohen put a ton of work into it, but it felt as if it was just going through the motions. The thing is Cohen set herself apart with Getting Away With It. It was edgy, it was pace-y, it had a heroine who could kick bum if necessary, and so I expected more of the same here. Instead, we get the somewhat meek and mild Alice. And it was sort of disappointing. I expected more, I suppose. It’s an alright enough novel (which probably sounds as if I’m damning it with faint praise or whatever that saying is), but I just expected more. The Summer of Living Dangerously just wasn’t what I was expecting and while it was still an alright read, I wanted a novel that I could really get my teeth into and a story that was just as good as the one in Getting Away With It.