Book Review: Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan

“When I’m quiet I can hear my heart yearning for impossible things. I want a perfectly pared-down home, and I want to hang on to every scrap of the past. I want a break from my kids without missing a single minute of their lives. I long for a partnership, and I long for freedom. I long to be enmeshed with someone without losing myself. I want all of it.”

Ali is trying to start living life again. It’s been two years since her mother died and one year since her husband left her. She has decided it’s time to take off her wedding ring, actually go through the divorce and start living life again. So, no one is more surprised than Ali when the first time she takes off her wedding ring, she meets someone. Ethan is completely taken by her after her dog pees on him at the dog park. After a weird ending to a first date, Ali discovers his identity and decides to have a fun summer with him and then move on. Everyone loves a summer romance: it’s always fun and ends just in time for no one to get their heart broken.

“It’s a lot easier to work through other people’s problems. I think I must be very attached to my own.”

Annabel Monaghan wrote one of my favorite romance books of 2022 – Nora Goes Off Script which we reviewed on the blog. Her follow up, Same Time Next Summer, I thought was not as good as her previous offerings. I reviewed it on Instagram when it came out last year (follow us on Instagram – nightstands2) and found it quite juvenile. I think with this her latest offering, she has returned to what I liked most about her writing in Nora Goes Off Script. I think Monaghan is at her best when her characters are matured and have lived life. She writes women who are leaving old love and meeting news ones very well. Also, she writes kids really well. The kids in her book are never annoying or obnoxious in a way that makes you wonder who is the kid and who is the parent.

“I am the architect of my own experience.”

Everyone knows romance novels follow the same formular. Two people meet, they fall in love, something happens in the last 20% of the book to drive them apart and then they resolve it and live happily ever after. One thing I liked about Summer Romance is that what is going to keep them apart is immediately obvious and not dumb at all. So, I never felt that dread of getting to about 80% of the book and suddenly a misunderstanding pop up and drives the couple apart. It’s a summer romance, we know it’s destined to end after the summer. Ethan the main character should have been more annoying to me, but I think I liked Ali way too much to be annoyed by him. I just wanted her to be happy and if she loved it, I loved it too.

“And now I can never unknow the truest true thing – the intensity of the love you feel will match the intensity of its loss. This is practically physics.”

Her relationship with her ex-husband and all the ways she let herself go in the marriage was fascinating to read. I really enjoyed those parts of the book. It is fascinating to see the many ways marriage is sustained by community and how it ultimately fell apart after Ali’s mother was no longer there to pick up the parts of the marriage that her ex-husband refused to be an equal partner of. Anyway, I quite enjoyed it. It’s an easy book to get through. It is well written and a good book to read during the summer. I gave this one 3 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy