Reviewed by Stephen K
TITLE: Summer Romance
SERIES: Such Sweet Summer #1
AUTHOR: F.N. Manning
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 192 Pages
RELEASE DATE: May 20th 2018
BLURB:
Neil’s summer plans consist of wearing an ugly uniform and working at a local grocery store. It’s not glamorous, but it becomes interesting when Carter Ford starts working there too. The nerd and the popular boy never crossed paths before, but they’re equals at the store. Coworkers.
And maybe more?
With Carter around, Neil’s boring summer job might turn out to be perfect.
But it’s not permanent.
The summer will end. Will their relationship end with it?
REVIEW:
My quest for a free-read for the weekend did NOT start well. The first two books I started were abysmal and I dropped them before getting more than a few chapters in. Authors who write about things they don’t know and/or tell disjointed stories that spoil perfectly good book ideas with lousy storytelling aren’t worth the time and frustration, even when their work is free. Just what is a “baseball court” anyway?
This one was already better by the end of chapter one; I’d laughed several times, I could tell that the author knew a bit about writing, and I was pretty sure I was gonna like the characters.
This is about a snarky-smart, if somewhat dorky boy, and the popular athletic boy he falls for when they both work the same summer job. It’s about as sweet as puppy videos on you-tube but it’s also laugh out loud funny in more than a few spots. It’s been said that the first person you have to come out to is yourself, and both boys here are still on the cusp of that, but their interplay makes them both adorable. Add to that the number of laughs I had during Neil’s parental coming out scene made this the perfect antidote to some of the truly painful comings out, that I’ve read lately.
It was also fun to read something relatively current with snarky references to One Direction, 13 Reasons Why, and people in a restaurant photographing their food before eating it. I could probably spoil the funniest chortle-bait moment in the book by disclosing Carter’s aunt’s job and Neil’s misunderstanding about her nationality but I’ll leave that for you to discover on your own. This one is NOT to be missed.
Not only is this a free read on Amazon, but if you join the author’s mailing list books 2 & 3 are downloadable for free as well.
RATING: 
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