Longstockings, Please

Picking a book for this week’s challenge of reading the first book in a new-to-you YA series was almost too easy. When it comes to YA literature, you can’t go wrong picking up something written by The Longstockings. Although they no longer maintain their blog, you can find references to them in the acknowledgment pages of each other’s books or interviews.

Jenny Han’s series The Summer I Turned Pretty begins (as all summer books worth their salt) with a family pulling up in front of a beach house. Belly and her brother have been spending summers with her mother’s best friend and her two sons for as long as she can remember.  However, this summer their relationship shifts as they begin looking to her as a peer rather than a little sister. As the teens relish their new independence, the moms take it easy, spending entire days indoors watching movies.  Distracted by a new boyfriend and an ongoing crush, Belly doesn’t realize until summer is almost over that not everything is as it seems.

Although the plot may seem predictable with its unrequited crushes and dying mothers, Han doesn’t dismiss the turmoil of teen emotions or neglect to portray the tensions of family dynamics. With flashbacks, she also gives the characters not only a shared history but depth as they mature. However, they all still have some growing up to do. As I’m sure we’ll see in the second book of the series.