Review: Beautiful and touching story about young love and over coming traumatic events.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 5, 2013
Summer's Desire by Olivia Lynde captured my attention from the very beginning. It is a sweet, but sad-depressing story about childhood sweethearts who are force to separate and reunite five years later. The story was also very touching; I definitely shed a tear or two while I was reading.In Summer's Desire you will meet Seth and Summer; two young people who were brought together by their traumatic and sad childhoods. Seth has been raised off and on by his poor excuse for a mom who would drop Seth off at his Grandmother's house for months, even years at a time. His grandmother was his only source of a loving home. When Seth was 7 his grandmother took in a foster child, five year-old Summer. Summer's parents had been killed in a traumatic way leaving Summer with night terrors and would not speak to anyone that is until she met Seth. Seth was the only person Summer would speak to and who she felt safe with. They spent a wonderful six years growing up together and falling in love. Seth's Grandma suddenly dies of a heart attack leaving 13 year-old Seth to return to his druggie mother and 11 year-old Summer to be returned to foster care system, bouncing from house to house. They both promised to find a way to stay in contact and be together again but for reasons out of their control they could not keep their promises. Five years pass, both are haunted by the other. Now Seth is a big football stud who sleeps his way through the female student body without having real relationships and Summer hides herself behind baggy clothes and blends in with the crowd to not stand out. With the hurt, the years gone by, and a conductive lying b*tch (excuse my language) trying to keep them apart can their love still survive?"All through our childhood, you were the best part of me: the one pure, perfect part of my life. That you could turn your back on me so easily after you'd left Rockford- thinking that crushed me."The first 65% or so of the book I really loved. I absolutely love the story of Seth and Summer. As sad and dramatic as their past they were able to see the good they had in each other even at a young age. Their love and need for each other was quiet an astonishing thing for two young children and the fact they did not out grow it with the five years they were apart speaks volumes of how important they were to one another.Summer and Seth were both really great characters. I loved the fact the book starts off with Seth and Summer as very young children and as you read they get older. The majority of the story is told when Summer and Seth are 16 & 18 years-old and in high school. I felt I was really able to connect to both characters reading about their relationship and how it grew from the very beginning. My heart was breaking for the two when they were torn about from one another after Grandma died. It was really sad knowing how much Summer or Sunny Seth called her depended on him. I felt the most pain for her.There reunion is not perfect. They are hurt by the other for not keeping their promise but it wasn't their fault they did keep their promise but a nasty villain got in their way from the very beginning. I seriously HATED the character of Jessica (I hate that she has my name!). She had it in her crazy mind to keep them apart from the moment she met Seth and when Summer returned she went crazy, like seriously crazy in the head. Stalker crazy!There were a few things that I tried to get past but I couldn't. The dialogue towards the end of the book when Seth and Summer get together again, I found some of the loving words to each other to be a bit cheesy and over the top, especially for two high school students. Also they use a lot of big words and I have never heard high school students' use and talk like that. Second was the use of exclamation mark. There were A LOT of sentences that ended with ! I felt it was not needed most of the time used. Also I felt Summer's foster father was a little loose with her considering he was a doctor and over all good guy. I just didn't believe how okay he was with "things" and Summer's social worker at the end was just a little farfetched to believe for me.With that said I really did enjoy the story of Seth and Summer. It was a beautiful story of two lost children who overcame a lot (a lot is an understatement) to end up together years later. I really enjoyed the epilogue, I would have liked a book 2 with Summer and Seth in college but the epilogue was perfect and I gave a wonderful closure to their story. I found Ms. Lynde to tell a touching story and look forward to reading more from her in the future.I give Summer's Desire 3.5 Stars.This book was provided by the author in return for an honest review.