Sunday, August 3, 2008

Enchanting Review: Cruel Summer

CRUEL SUMMER
ALYSON NOEL
Contemporary Young Adult
St. Martin’s Griffin
ISBN# 978-0-312-35511-1
229 Pages
$8.95
Trade-Available Now

Rating: 3.5 Enchantments

Colby Cavendish can’t believe her parents have ruined her summer. Sure, they’re getting a divorce and don’t want her to be in the middle of it, but that doesn’t mean they needed to ship her all the way to Greece-and her crazy aunt Tally, ruining her summer in the process.

First, Colby hates being sent away and is desperate to escape the boredom that is her new home on the tiny island of Tinos. Crazy Aunt Tally may not be so crazy, but she’s still not who Colby would want as an ideal roommate. Then there’s the island itself, small, full of routine and not so much to do. There’s one coffee place with internet that Colby adopts as her home away from home, but Petros, the owner keeps telling her to get out there and get some sun, and is only to glad to kick her out one day when the electricity goes out. Colby’s all set to spend the summer miserable, up until she meets Yannis, the cute local guy she first bumped into on the small boat on the way to the island and maybe things start to look up after all.

I have to admit there were times when I really wasn't fond of Colby. Even after meeting Yannis, she still keeps emailing her supposed 'friends' back home in Los Angeles who haven't yet emailed once back, asking about Levi, the guy she left behind. And when her 'friend' makes a couple rude comments about Yannis' picture on her blog, Colby finds herself looking at him in a whole new light, which ruins the romantic evening he had planned. Even the twist of the 'anonymous' commenter on her blog wasn't so hard to figure out.

CRUEL SUMMER had its high points, but they didn't outnumber the lows for me. While Colby did finally mature in the end and I loved how she began to embrace her life in Greece after she started hanging around with Yannis, she spent a lot of the book being too wishy washy for my tastes.

Alyson Noel is the author of Saving Zoe and Art Geeks and Prom Queens. She lives in Laguna Beach, California where she is working on her next book. Visit her on the Web at www.alysonnoel.com

Lisa
Enchanting Reviews
August 2008

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