Main Characters: Auden West and Eli Stock

Summary:

Riding a bike is only one of the many things Auden’s missed out on. Even before her parent’s divorce, she was cast in the role of little adult, never making waves, focusing on academics to please her demanding mother.

Now she’s spending the summer before college in the tiny little beach town of Colby with her father and his new wife and baby. A job in a trendy boutique introduces her into the world of girls, their friendships, conversations, romances.  And then there’s Eli, an intriguing loner. A former star on the bike circuit and fellow insomniac, Eli introduces Auden to the nocturnal world of Colby. Together they embark on a quest : For Auden, to experience the carefree teenage life she’s been denied; for Eli, to put a tragic episode behind him. combine two lonely people with a charming beach town and an endless supply of long summer nights, and just about anything can happen.

Jenny’s Thoughts:

Sarah Dessen does it again, I stayed up all night. From 8pm to 3am I was reading this book. Shamefully, I took it to the bathroom with me, so woe is Anna when she goes to read it. It was amazing. It’s the one thing I love about all of Sarah Dessen’s books. She takes a totally typical story, changes it into something beautiful that is all her own and she comes up with books like “Along for the Ride”. All of her books are amazing, they keep me on the edge of my seat with that butterfly in your stomach, why not me(?) feeling and this one was no different. There’s something about the way she can describe the unspoken bond between Eli and Auden and really all of her characters that leaves you looking at your significant other going, “We so have that.” I felt sad for Eli when I found out his secret. I felt my heart break when Auden’s did, but like I said, that’s just the power of Dessen working it’s charm on you. I look forward to any and all books she comes out with in the future. She truly is a one of a kind author, I highly recommend this book for daydreamers, hopeless romantics and hell, just anyone looking for a connection.

Main Characters: Iris, Collette, Ben & Elijah

Summary :

Nothing ever happened in Ondine, Louisiana, not even the summer Elijah Landry disappeared.

His mother knew he ascended to heaven, the police believed he ran away, and his girlfriend thought he was murdered.

Decades later, certain she saw his ghost in the town cemetery, fourteen-year-old Iris Rhame is determined to find out the truth behind “The Incident With the Landry Boy.”

Enlisting the help of her best friend Collette, and forced to endure the company of Collette’s latest crush, Ben, Iris spends a summer digging into the past and stirring old ghosts, in search of a boy she never knew.

What she doesn’t realize is that in a town as small as Ondine, every secret is a family secret.

Anna’s Thoughts :

Shadowed Summer is the type of book, that for me, makes me want to pull out some lawn chairs and a lemonade stand and go sit on the sidewalk outside my house in the middle of summer (which is saying a lot since it was 82 degrees out at 4AM yesterday). It’s got an incredible story with one hell of a twist on it, and it’s characters grab you and refuse to let go! I was a little deterred by the price/size ratio when trying to decide if I wanted to purchase the book, but after reading it, I am so incredibly glad I did! It’s got a better story on 183 pages, then some authors manage to pull off on 700+ pages.

The best part about the entire book was Elijah, and the fact that Saundra Mitchell managed to create a character that you felt sorry for while still finding him incredibly horrid/annoying at times. You feel sorry for him in the end and throughout the book for what happened (or what you think happened), but throughout the book, some of the ways he treats Iris, frustrated or not, kind of made me want to beat him with a broomstick. You know, assuming it wouldn’t have just gone right through him. Also, the relationship that Iris and Elijah share is also very well wound into the book, throughout the book you get the feeling that although Iris has never met Elijah, that she genuinely cares about him and wants to help him, and not just because it’s a mystery.

The worse thing about this book has nothing to do with the characters, plot, or the writing, but it’s size. There are some books that you could shave 300 pages off of and never know the difference, and some books you want to be longer. With Shadowed Summer it’s a book that I could have easily read 300 pages of, but at the same time, even if it had gotten bigger, I already love it so much that I couldn’t possibly love it anymore, no matter how much more of it there was.