The Summer I Found You by Jolene Perry

 

 

Jolene Perry's THE SUMMER I FOUND YOU, about a teenage girl trying to cope with her new diagnosis of type one diabetes and a teenage male veteran who is learning how to embrace his new life after losing an arm, who come together by using each other as an escape, only to discover through love and struggle that your life is what you make of it.

Misty's Reviews:

I haven't been finishing a lot of books lately, but I love Jolene's books, so I let myself get lost for a few afternoons in this one.

Kate thought she knew what (who) she wanted, but apparently he doesn't want her anymore. Kate's longtime boyfriend has just broken up with her, and she is still dealing (not very well) with a new diagnosis of Diabetes. She feels out of control of her own life, and it sucks.

She meets Aiden, a guy who is going through the same thing. Wounded in Afghanistan, his life is no longer going in the direction he planned. When he meets Kate, it's just another complication in his screwed up life.

Somehow they each work it out and get back in control of their own business. I would have liked to see Kate and Aiden help each other more through their respective problems, as it seemed like they each worked out their own stuff by themselves. But there's a lot to be said for dealing with your own crap yourself and not depending on someone else to help you be happy. All in all, just a great coming of age book I loved reading.

Content: Non LDS standards (the characters have sex, but it is not described)

The Next Door Boys by Jolene Perry

From Goodreads:
With her body still recovering from last year's cancer treatments, Leigh Tressman is determined to be independent. Despite the interference from her overprotective brother, physical frustrations, and spiritual dilemmas— not to mention the ever expanding line of young men ready to fall in love with her— Leigh discovers what it actually means to stand on her own and learns that love can be found in unexpected but delightful places.

From Misty:

This book was about cancer like The Book of Mormon is about Jesus.  Despite its universal coming of age theme, you have to be a Mormon to read this book.  But I don't mean that in a bad way. 

Cancer has such a tendency to overshadow everything else in a novel.  If there is cancer in a book, the book is about cancer.  This is generally very offputting for me.  Here's another review I did on a book about cancer, if you need an idea where I'm coming from on this review. 

All Leigh wants to do is be over cancer.  Chemo is over.  She's in remission.  But wait, she's not back to her old energetic self?  It's almost like this surprises her.  But it's less surprise and more denial.  I've been in the hospital, awake for days on end, SICK of needles, and SICK of doctors and especially nurses (fyi I hate doctors and nurses), so I could identify with Leigh just being sick of it all.  But otherwise, I think I would have thought she was a big baby and that she should just get over it.  She's asking for the impossible.  Despite a brief claim that she's at peace with life and death and infertility, she wants to have never been affected by cancer.  She's dealing with four main things: denial of not being 100 % yet, her overprotective friends and family, being in a major program that is unsuitable for her, and every boy in the book, much to her dismay, falling all over her.   

The reader has to make and accept a lot of assumptions about Leigh's illness.  You have to have a basic idea about what Chemo involves.  I think most people do, even younger readers, but Perry also expects the reader to have an understanding of the social and emotional repercussions a cancer diagnosis can have on the both the patient and the patient's caregivers.  The main action of this whole experience, Leigh getting a diagnosis and suffering through cancer and chemo, doesn't even happen in this book, so the whole book is sort of this long falling action from a climax we didn't get to see.  I think the relationship Leigh has with her brother, Jaron, is completely weird without this background and a major "eww" factor even with it.  I'm pretty sure I have never held hands with or placed my head on any of my brothers' shoulders, not even for one second of my life.  Ever.  And for someone who wants her independence so badly, I don't understand why Leigh still has this sicky, clingy, physical, flirty relationship with her brother.  But again, I come at this book with no background on Leigh's experience save a few brief flashback/explanations, and none of my own.  And I am kind of a robot when it comes to emotions, and my best friend had to teach me how to hug when I was like, eighteen.

Leigh's independence is a big issue for her.  But as a reader, I'm not sure what she is looking for independence from.  Her hovering mother?  Her illness?  Boys?  But she knows Jaron has been enlisted to hover in her mother's absence.  And she denies it, but there is no getting away from her illness.  And the boys?  She says she wants education, not boys, but...really?  If she broke up with her brother-boyfriend maybe she could see someone else...  Okay, that was a low blow.  I can understand not being in the market for a fella, but I really can't understand her alleged cluelessness about guys.  She says she was in with the wrong crowd in high school.  Did this crowd not include boys?  I'm trying to picture what a wrong crowd of just girls would be like.  I mean, in an LDS novel, the thing that would make a crowd of girls the wrong crowd, from and LDS standpoint, would be that they were going too far with boys.  Right?  Right?  I don't even buy that Leigh is not interested in boys--because she falls SO fast and SO hard when Noah walks in the door.  I don't care what she says out loud, every girl is interested in being loved.  Period.  Leigh treats the exteraneous boys like she treats cancer--ignore it and it will go away.

The narration of this story slips into "tell" instead of "show" a lot, but the story is interesting and the characters likable enough that it stopped mattering to me after a while. If not the most enjoyable narration style, the author made it work, and it was effective for this story.  Leigh learned and grew and matured, and the ending was good. 

It's sounding like I didn't like this book, and that is completely untrue.  I did like it.  I would recommend it to LDS fiction readers, and I would definitely look for more of Perry's books.

*Ebook obtained through Netgalley.com

Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freedman

One of my favorite things to do is to wander around thrift stores. I adore thrift stores!! I drag my children down every isle while I shop happily to the sound of their whines and "pleeeeease"s. The thrill of the hunt keeps me coming back week after week. Thrift stores are wonderful, because I never pay full price for anything, including books. As a young mother, it isn't often that I find myself with extra funds to purchase new reading material, and when I find an exciting new book at a thrift store or used book store, I am ecstatic. So today, I'd like to feature one of my amazing finds. It's a little book titled Mrs. Mike. This isn't a suspense, though it is very romantic! I'm veering a little off course today, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to review this book. It's definitely an oldie--published in 1947, but it's a story that will inspire and touch your heart forever.

Publisher's Note:  A moving love story set in the Canadian wilderness, Mrs. Mike is a classic tale that has enchanted millions of readers worldwide. It brings the fierce, stunning landscape of the Great North to life-and tenderly evokes the love that blossoms between Sergeant Mike Flannigan and beautiful young Katherine Mary O'Fallon.


Mandi's Review: This is the true story of Katherine Mary O'Fallon, a young sixteen-year-old girl, who travels to Calgary, Alberta in 1907  to live with her Uncle John. She has pleurisy and because of her illness she is being sent to the Great North West in the hopes that the cool, dry air will help cure her lungs. Her Uncle is a rancher and Kathy is amazed by the new experience of traveling so far from home. Ranch life is very different than the life she led in Boston. She soon meets Sergeant Mike Flannigan and the sparks immediately fly. One of my favorite scenes is when Kathy has just finished cooking current berry pies for her uncle and the ranch hands. Not used to cooking with dried fruit, she messes up the pies, much to her embarrassment---


 "Well," said Mike, "when are you going to teach Kathy how to shoot?"
"You mean go hunting?" I couldn't believe it.
"Johnny bought her a twenty-two in town," Uncle said.
"You won't be needing any ammunition," Mike said, and grinned at me.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Well, you can use the currants in those seven currant pies you baked."


Was there really something wrong with the pies? I'd been saving mine for later because I was full. But I walked to the table and took a big bite of it to show him. It was as if I had pebbles in my mouth. I wondered what was wrong. But I wasn't going to ask them because they were laughing at me and because my mouth was too full of that currant rock to talk. To spit them out would be defeat, so I made a fake gulp and tried to hold my mouth naturally as if I had swallowed them. 


Mike said good-by. I didn't answer because I couldn't. He took my hand and leaned toward me till my hair brushed his cheek.


"Spit 'em out," he said softly, "and the next time, cook 'em."


In that moment, you too will fall in love with the handsome Sergeant Mike Flannigan. This is a very moving love story. A story of survival and family. The Great Northwest is an amazing backdrop and this book will leave a lasting impression on your life. I give Mrs. Mike 5 out of 5 stars.  

You can purchase a copy of Mrs. Mike on Amazon.