Good Summer Read

In June of last year, I blogged about my friend Sarah, a soon-to-be published author of young adult novels. Her first book, entitled Twenty Boy Summer, is slated to drop into bookstores in June of this year. However, having the kinds of connections in the book world that I have, I was able to come across not one, but four fresh-off-the-presses tomes that were mine for the taking. I gave the first to a coworker and she has already torn through it. Now she can't shut up about how much she related to it. The remaining copies will go to readers whom I deem worthy of such a great little story. As for the rest of you, I will nag you until you get your own copies in June.

I had been on the look out for the book, since she told me, but I never imagined this stroke of luck! Someone in our author promotions area told me that to get advance reader copies out there (which is what my copies are called) means the publisher really believes in the book. I am so not shocked!

Since finding the novel, I have delved into its pages with a kind of frenzied hunger reserved for arctic polar bears losing the eco-war in their melting ice world. That’s to say that I have been reading it as though it was a race to the finish before the ice island I’m on melts into the sea.

I am happy to report that Sarah’s first novel – a sweet tale of love, grief, family and friendship – is beautifully written and emotionally alive. I know this may sound like I am biased, but believe me that when it comes to books – biased or not – I won’t get through it, if it sucks. Her Twenty Boy Summer definitely does not suck.

Her main characters – Matt, Anna and Frankie – leap off the pages. They have become as real to me as old friends. With each passing chapter I care for and become more familiar with them – their likes and dislikes, their concerns and fears, their strength and weaknesses. With each passing paragraph, I am reliving the sweetly painful confusion and raw emotions of my adolescence.

I won't give any more of it away, except to say that young or old, this is a relatable story for all ages. I will be recommending it to my friends and hoping they pass along the wisdom to their own friends. Grab a copy when it hits the shelves in June. And at the risk of sounding like a late-night informational, I will say that I promise you, you too will love Twenty Boy Summer!!

What I love most about reading a book that my friend wrote is the little parts that ring true to me because I know her. The things that would go otherwise unacknowledged by the average reader. Like I know who Scotty-O from “the band” is and I know that he did have a liver transplant when he was a child. I know she threw in transplant and grief as a direct connection to a former life that affected her in such memorable ways. I know the curly blond locks on Anna’s head are all her own and I know that the mispronunciation, or misuse of words is straight out of her own personal handbook of pet peeves.

But what I know most of all, from reading Twenty Boy Summer is that Sarah can construct a story with all of the necessary elements needed to make it great! I know that I love her book, even if it is for young adults and I am a few years post-young adulthood. I know that many other books-in-waiting are taking up residence in her head right now. And I know that I will read every single one of them from now on…

Bravo, Sarah!