Book Review #34: The Unforgettable Summer by Nikki A Lamers

Hello Dear Reader!

I’ve got a third indie book review in a row for you, and this time, it’s all about the romance! A word of warning, though. This book has the most detailed sexual content I’ve ever encountered. Now, this book isn’t erotica. I know that there are more graphic steamy scenes out there, and the scenes I encountered in this book isn’t that. Still, if sexual content in books isn’t your thing, keep that in mind while you’re reading this review. Also, this book touches on overdosing on sleeping pills and symptoms of depression and anxiety, so if you’re sensitive to those topics and find those triggering, keep that in mind, too.

But before I get into the book, here is the summary (from Goodreads):

Bree spends the summer of her dreams on a lake in Maine when she meets gorgeous, active and playful Christian. What will happen at the end of the summer when Christian leaves for college and Bree has to return home for one more year of high school to find her world has turned completely upside down? Will unforeseen circumstances keep them apart or will they find their way back to each other?

That’s the end of the summary, now let’s get into the review!

Main character and narrator Briann, or Bree for short, is a girl I could honestly relate to when she was introduced at the beginning of the book. Shy and an introvert at heart, she’s self-conscious about herself like every seventeen-year-old is, and she’s got a sweet heart and loves her family, especially her angel of a grandmother and her best friend and practical sister, Amy. Then, introduce pretty but nice boy Christian, who’s beautiful both inside and out and treats Bree well the entire summer they spend together while she’s at her grandmother’s house in Maine. As stated in the back-cover summary, the two have to be in a long-distance relationship since Bree has to finish her last year of high school, and that’s when her happiness takes a 180 turn when she finds out something devastating about one of her family members.

Before I touch on that a bit more, there are a few key minor characters in this book that deserve to be mentioned, and they are Blake and Amy, Bree’s absolute best friends throughout high school and going into college! It’s hard to talk about these two without mentioning spoilers, especially Amy, but I’m gonna do my best. First up is Blake. Even though he’s introduced last among the characters I’ve mentioned, he’s easily one of my favorites. He’s a very sweet guy who’s willing to do anything to take care of his two best friends, and he isn’t afraid to stand up to them and tell them what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. Amy is Bree’s best friend and practical sister since childhood, and she’s definitely the complete opposite of Bree. She does have a tendency to focus on herself in more terrible situations than others also involved, but I’m gonna leave it there for spoilers’ sake.

The book mainly takes place in various places in Maine, including the lake Bree and Christian spends their summer together and also their university. There are also chapters where they take place at Bree’s house in her hometown in Massachusetts.

Now, this is usually the place where I put the things that bothered me, but with this book, the things that bothered me are also the things I really appreciate, because I’ve never felt so frustrated reading a book before in my life. Long story short, there’s a lot of drama in this book, and the kind of drama featured is just not my type of drama; however, it could definitely be yours! The drama starts when Bree is in her senior year of high school, and it carries into her first year at college. There are first loves, one-sided loves, and second chances. There are also a lot of college parties, some people getting drunk, varying degrees of pettiness, and moments where characters were acting unreasonably. There are choices that certain characters made that I personally didn’t agree with but could understand why they did it, but overall I found it all kind of frustrating. Still, I give the author brownie points for that, because this book was able to make me feel and react to drama I’ve heard of from my friends in real life.

Now for the things that genuinely bother me.

My biggest pet peeve when it comes to romance is when a romantic relationship develops pretty quickly, and that’s honestly the main thing that stuck out to me while reading this book. Christian and Bree are a cute couple, but they just happened too fast for me, especially with the sexual content included in the book, which leads to the second thing that poked at me while reading this book. The steamy scenes weren’t my kind of steamy scenes, and there were phrases describing certain actions that I personally don’t prefer. Still, it could be something you would like, so don’t take my word for it because everyone has their preferences. I also wish I got to know Bree a bit better as a character, especially when it came to her insecurities, abandonment issues, and depression. I felt like a bit of that was summarized or skimmed over outside of critical moments in the book where those issues are clearly in the forefront, and I would’ve liked a deeper dive into it. Still, I found Bree and Christian pretty cute, and as weird as this sounds, I enjoyed how frustrated this book made me, because how I reacted to certain things in this book is how I react to similar types of drama in real life. 

So, The Unforgettable Summer rating:

7/10 and recommend if you like a lot of drama in your romance stories. Also, remember that there is some detailed sexual content in this book as well as scenes that touch on depression and anxiety, so if those are things that you’d rather tiptoe around, keep that in mind in case you do want to read this book.

Thanks for reading!