Summer’s End is the first book in a trilogy centering around the main character, Summer, and a mysterious biker boy, Alex AKA Dooney. 

These two characters don’t remember each other, but their pasts and their futures intertwine incredibly closely.  Summer awakens from a coma to find out that she had been in a terrible fire, with burns over most of her body.  Now that she is mostly healed, she is left with a small burn scar on her face, and no memory.

She goes back to college accompanied by her two best friends, and tries to piece together what her life was like before.  Then she sees him, Alex.  Something about him stirs her memories and she obviously afraid, and confused.  More than that however, she is determined to find the answers about her past, and what happened.

This is a pretty decent YA book.  The characters were written well, and there were some twists and turns I did not expect. Before I finish talking about the good however, I do have to say the one major bad thing I felt about this book.

In 2009 Lauren Kate published Fallen, and if you read this book, you would know the plot is eerily similar to the plot of this book.  To the point where I was reading Summer’s End and had to put it down so I could go figure out what book it was reminding me of.  I do not know where book two or three is going to take the plot of this story, BUT I am hoping it starts to differ greatly from where it currently is. 

Now back to the good.  As I said, this is a YA book, and it slides into that genre well.  I could easily see recommending this book to a teenager, or an adult.  The writing is easy to read, and has a good flow and pacing that keeps you interested in the book.

This book does have some religious tones in it, but it is done in a way that it is not preaching and trying to get you to covert.  Which is great.  That being said, as some of the major plot points do center around religion in a way, I would have loved to see the author give more attention to that, and how the religion and the realities of that religion work in the world the author created.

The beginning of the book is kind of slow, but the author makes up for this by the intense need to turn pages once you get towards the climax of the book.  I could not put the book down because I had to know what happened next.  And then when I got to the ending, I was actually kind of mad it was over.

Book two and three of this series is already out, so if you find you loved book one, you don’t have wait to see what happens next.  

Overall – This was a decent book that I enjoyed reading.  I think its biggest flaw is it is similar enough to another book that it was a bit distracting.  That being said, I would happily read book two, and if that goes well, book three as well to see how this story ends.

Plot – 8/10

Characters – 8/10

Originality –  2/10

General Joy of Reading – 8/10

Overall Score – 26/40

Summer’s End: The Summer Solstice series #1 by Kristy Brown

Cost* –  Kindle is $4.13 Paperback is $11.03.   Book is included with Kindle Unlimited

*Cost is based upon what the book cost when book review is published