2 Mini-Reviews : How My Summer Went Up in Flames & Brooklyn Girls
How My Summer Went Up in Flames by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski
Pages : 307
Genre : YA, Contemporary
Stand alone
My Rating : 2.5/5
From the back of the book :
To put distance between Rosie and her ex, Rosie’s parents send her on a cross-country road trip with responsible, reliable neighbor Matty and his two friends. Forget freedom of the road, Rosie wants to hitchhike home and win back her ex. But her determination starts to dwindle with each passing mile. Because Rosie’s spark of anger? It may have just ignited a romance with someone new…
My Thoughts :
How My Summer Went Up in Flames was a very entertaining novel of road trip, romance, adventure and moving on. It’s a very cute and quick read when you simply need to take your mind off things.
However, I did not connect with the book. I wanted to like it a lot more than I actually did! Rosie really is impulsive, but for me it felt more like a lack of common sense and/or maturity. So even though the first few chapters were entertaining, I got tired of it all really quick.
Obviously, I’m not the target demographic here, so I wouldn’t take my word for it. And I still had fun! It simply wasn’t very remarkable for me.
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Brooklyn Girls by Gemma Burgess
Pages : 320
Genre : Contemporary fiction
Series : Brooklyn Girls, book 1
My Rating : 3/5
From the back of the book :
Start a food truck business of course! Pia takes on the surprisingly cutthroat Brooklyn world of hybrid lettuce growers, artisanal yogurt makers and homemade butter producers to start SkinnyWheels—all while dealing with hipster bees, one-night-stands, heartbreak, parental fury, wild parties, revenge, jail, loan sharks, playboys, karaoke, true love, and one adorable pink food truck. And that’s without counting her roommates’ problems, too. Gemma Burgess has captured the confusion, hilarity and excitement of the post-graduate years against a backdrop of the pressures and chaos of New York City life, with heartfelt empathy, fast humor and sharp honesty.
My Thoughts :
I’ll admit I went into Brooklyn Girls with very little expectations, as I had never read Gemma Burgess before, and hadn’t heard much about the book before reading it. I was very pleasantly surprised with the adventure offered here!
Pia was a very likable character. A bit (a lot!) naive at times, yes, but still very likable. I absolutely loved that she worked on a food truck! It felt different from all the english majors, journalists, fashion addicts I most often see in chicklit novels (though some of her friends will certainly fit that stereotype). I also quite enjoy the idea of the series, with each book being written from a different character’s point-of-view, and I am looking forward to seeing what happens with the other girls.
Wath I liked less was the pacing, which I found uneven, and the length of the story, which I felt should have been a tad shorter. But it was still a fun and cute ride!
Brooklyn Girls is available for sale right now! Thanks to St-Martin’s Griffin for generously providing a digital copy of the book for this review.
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great review! I definitely want to read Brooklyn Girls now! thanks for sharing
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Yeah, sometimes I think I’m just too old for books like How My Summer went up in Flames. What the characters see as adventure seem like irresponsibility to me.
Brooklyn Girls sounds like a fun story! I’ve definitely never read a book with a main character perched in a food truck. It’s actually been a while since I read anything set in New York, so perhaps it’s time for a return!
I liked How My Summer Went Up In Flames. I didn’t connect to her either, she’s kinda nutso… and I am far from the demographic. I liked the pace and premise. I’m the kind of gal that likes reading about the stuff I would never do, and she definitely picked a goodie with revenge. Sorry you wren’t crazy about it, but I think lots of others will think otherwise.