The Summer of Skinny Dipping by Amanda Howells

Release Date: June 1, 2010
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 295
Overall: :

After getting dumped by her boyfriend, Mia is looking forward to spending a relaxing summer in the Hamptons with her glamorous cousins. But when she arrives she find her cousins distant, moody, and caught up with a fast crowd. Mia finds herself lonelier than ever, until she meets her next-door-neighbor, Simon Ross. And from the very first time he encourages her to go skinny dipping, she's caught in a current impossible to resist.

How to even begin to describe this novel... I'm still trying to figure out whether to pull it out to the next book club meeting and make everyone read it whether they want to or not, or hide it under my bed so no one will ever find it... I honestly have two very different feelings towards this book, and I think you can tell what they are from the above description.

I'm going to try and keep this more on point with the categories, because if I don't, I will ramble, and if I ramble out come the spoilers. Spoilers for this book are something I do not want to give away! Okay, characters, it's weird because Mia is exactly the type of person I usually rag on, for comparing herself to all the rail thin beauties at her extended family's resort in the Hamptons, but surprisingly I loved her character! She felt really real to me, like maybe a long lost friend that I had that she reminded me of or maybe the writing was just that phenomenal (but more on that later) I liked Simon also, but there was something about him being really reckless that sort of hit a nerve for me, I think that was a way I anticipated the ending about 150 pages into the book, but like I said, no spoilers. The plot was great, a good coming of age story, finding your first true love but also finding yourself along the way is a timeless plot line, but it didn't feel overdone at all in this story, which was great! Finally, the writing! Oh. My. Gosh. Can Amanda Howell write a story!! There's something very Nicholas Sparks about the way she writes, but BETTER I swear this book was addictive to me, even though I knew how it ended (well, not knew had a very very strong guess) I still kept reading because I couldn't stop! I will definitely be looking for more Amanda Howell novels, because, like I said, her writing is addictive. The thing that makes me have bipolar feelings about this book was, as I have mentioned numerous times in this review, was the ending............... I don't know how to describe it without giving it away............

Would I recommend it? If you are looking for a deep, finding yourself, Nicholas Sparks-ish novel. Then MOST DEFINITELY!!

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xoxo,

Shelbie