Reviewed by inlibrisveritas on
How My Summer Went Up in Flames is undoubtedly a great book to read when the sun is shining and you’re feeling a bit of wanderlust.
I don’t read very many road trip books but anytime there is a lot of travel involved in a plot I usually really enjoy it, and HMSWUIF is no different. Rosie is forced to put some distance between her and her ex-boyfriend due to an incident with fire and his car, and a restraining order. Unfortunately since this contains very little in the way of plot, other than a road trip and a girl needing to learn a lesson there isn’t much for me to talk about.
Rosie is kind of funny, a tad bit of obsessive and a little bit impulsive; and she starts off the book a bit immature about the whole situation. I can tell she’s trying to handle the situation as best she can, but she’s not really doing that great of a job with it and it just lands her in more trouble. I liked seeing her grow some over the course of the trip, though I honestly wish there had been a little more because I got tired of seeing her flirt with or try to get the attention of other guys. Despite that I could see her trying to become more responsible. Matty is her best friend and probably one of the best characters in this book. He’s a great friend and I felt that Rosie sort of took his friendship for granted most of the time. I also really liked his two friends and their dynamic with each other. In fact I would say the side characters are better than Rosie for most of the book.
Over all HMSWUIF is a fun romp across the country but the main character sort of dampens things a bit.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 5 July, 2013: Finished reading
- 5 July, 2013: Reviewed