Tuesday, August 4, 2015

#REVIEW and #NEW RELEASE, today, 8-4, #GIVEAWAY, too! "The Summertime Girls" by Laura Hankin!


Description:


When two lifelong friends reunite for one more summer in small-town Maine, they must bridge the gap caused by the dreams and secrets that tore them apart…


Ally Morris and Beth Abbott were beyond inseparable. From the very first time they met, the girls knew they’d found a once-in-a-lifetime friendship. But sometimes, life can’t help but get in the way.


As time goes by, disappointments and petty resentments begin to alter what they once thought was forever. Ally’s boho lifestyle leaves her drowning in confusion and cheap whisky, while a terrible secret threatens to shatter Beth’s carefully controlled world. By the time they need each other most, Ally and Beth are nearly strangers to each other.

When a family crisis prompts Beth to contact Ally for help out of the blue, the girls reunite in Maine. But the distance between them is overwhelming. To save their friendship, Ally and Beth will have to confront painful moments in their past and redefine who they are—before their incredible connection fades away for good.

MY TAKE:
4 Stars!
Memorable. Resounding. Beautiful.
This story brings back memories I will never forget anytime soon as I look back over the years when my best friend and I were inseparable! Heck, we met in the 6th grade and rode our bikes to each other’s houses! Even though a huge amount time and distance separates us now of over 50 miles and a good 1-½ hour drive, over these last 38 years we’ve been friends, I can honestly say they have been the BEST years of my life - ALL because of her! We have lost a lot of contact over the last several years, new friends, too, but I foresee us getting closer again one day, even if it is only on the phone for now. We have such wonderful memories together that nothing can separate that!
Best friends will do anything for each other - anything, and this includes keeping secrets, family secrets, and even larger secrets about each other, other people, or even each others’ families. (If only walls could talk, huh!)
We've all been there with our best friends when a small tiff over something that is so tiny and ridiculous to others who easily laugh it off, but to best friends, this can sometimes shatter their relationship. To best friends it can be so huge to them, it’s the tipping point, and can become just about unforgivable to each other, yet at the time that is what stops them from talking for months, or worse, for years.
This is what happens with Ally and Beth. A tiff, but it’s a huge tiff for them that does not get talked about or worked out. It gets pushed onto that back burner, and stews over the years on Ally’s end, especially. Beth really has no clue what is going on. It’s not until Beth really needs Ally to help move her Grandmother out of her old Maine home that Beth is so familiar with from going there over the years in the summer, and she loves Ally’s Grandmother just like her own. Now it’s time to put Grandma into a nursing home, and there are mixed feelings all the way around with everyone, even with Grandma. She's really upset over losing her car.
This is actually helping to bring the girls’ issues forward, out and into the open where they really need to be if these two wonderful friends want to get back to the way they were. There is a lot of work these two, now women, need to work on, but they can do it, if they do it together, right? That is what best friends do best, right?!
I highly recommend reading this book if you’ve ever had a best friend! It’s not always easy to maintain this high position of friendship, but if you had it once, it will always be there and you’ll really want your friend back!
At the end of the book, there is a Reader’s Guide with Discussion Questions if there is a Book Club who decide to read this! I highly recommend discussing this book out loud because I think you’ll get a LOT MORE out of this book that way!
One last thing I have to say is once I started reading this book, I had a really difficult time putting it down when I needed to! Make sure you allow yourself time to read this one, especially so you can enjoy it like I did! Who and how can you resist your best friend? (With a HUGE smile on my face!)
I need to say even though I enjoyed this book immensely, I can’t help but to say how I felt something seemed like there was something missing towards the end. Was there not enough time between these two friends that had passed for Ally to be so upset with Beth? Beth never did explain Tom . . . Is that what is bothering me so much about these two? In the same breath, Ally had a few dates and found some friendship with a guy they both went to school with, Owen, who was kind of a nerd, but as we grow from teenagers into women, we often find those nerds are not nerds but very smart and attractive men! Ally did not share this with Beth either, so perhaps I’m feeling the blues that the girls did not bring the men in their lives up more to discuss, but then again, this book is about best friends and not their boyfriends! I think that’s it! ALL women talk about men, and vice-versa! This is the prime time in women’s lives to be sharing the men in these women’s lives, and I believe that is what I felt was the missing link here. MORE romance next book, please!!!
I received this book from the Publisher, Berkley through NetGalley in exchange to write  a review.
I also say, grab this one before summer ends and enjoy! This is the perfect book to squeeze in for that last "end of summer read"! One last book vacation for you! Enjoy!

The Summertime Girls by Laura Hankin
ebook: $9.99
print:   $7.43



***WANT TO #WIN "MY COPY" OF THIS BOOK?  
THE DIRECTIONS ARE:
#Win The Summertime Girls by Laura Hankins by CLICKING IN THE UPPER LEFT SIDE COLUMN ON THE "BEACH READS IN AUGUST GIVEAWAY HOP"! 
FILL OUT THE FORM!
Thanks for stopping by!
Good Luck!
Good to 8-15!

2 comments:

  1. I follow through bloglovin -debby236. I love the sounds of the book and hope to win.
    debby236 at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete

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