Nice coming of age story about summer camp, but the character development is a bit lacking. Also not enough good juicy summer camp info, which was what I was looking for.

Perennials is the perfect read for summer! Rachel and Fiona are best friends, who happen to meet at Camp Marigold one summer. Every year they are reunited back at camp, and the story takes you through each of the girls perspectives. Both girls have very different backgrounds, but this story has a way to intersect them both, to show how they grow up and become the young women they are today.

There were parts of this book I really liked, yet I couldn't stick with it. I may revisit it at another time.

Perennials

by Mandy Berman

I chose this book because it promised tales of summer camp (a place I've sent my kids to, but always wished I'd gone myself) and suggested it was for fans of Curtis Sittenfeld, among others. I was hoping for another Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, or something like that, but the characters did not capture my imagination in the same way. While their backstories were interesting, for me at least, they never seemed to be fully fleshed out. Worse still, I found them annoying, so empathy for their problems was especially hard to come by. The resolution of the book came in a rush, and was more confusing than revealing. This was not for me, but, as far as I can tell, if you were a summer camper, you will page through this one on nostalgia alone.


For Goodreads:

Why I picked it — I love summer-camp-themed stories!

Reminded me of… the nasty relationship between the sisters in Dirty Dancing, without the satisfying ending. Somebody definitely put Baby in the corner here.

For my full review — click here

This one surprised me. I put it down after about 10 pages, with no intention of continuing, but the next day I decided to give it one more shot (thank goodness). The build up is slow but captures you quickly, much like the summer heat that creeps in to the camp that main characters Rachel and Fiona spend their summers at. It's hard to believe that this is Mandy Berman's debut novel; she writes such vivid, layered characters, and the time and setting weave so effortlessly into their stories. Rachel and Fiona are girls that I knew - girls that I was - during both their time spent as preteen girls at a summer camp and as young women trying to navigate who they are and who they haven't yet become. There were moments and thoughts put so beautifully into words that I reread clusters of several pages on multiple occasions. Heavy with nostalgia and intensely thoughtful. I love this book.

Is there a better way to welcome summer than with a debut novel about summer camp? I don’t think so.

I never went to summer camp, but I always, always wanted to, so perhaps a bit of my appreciation of Mandy Berman’s Perennials is rooted in envy. Regardless, it’s good.

Rachel and Fiona are campers—and later camp counselors—at Camp Marigold. They come from vastly different backgrounds but are best camp friends.

Told from multiple perspectives over the course of multiple summers, resembling linked short stories more than a novel, Fiona’s and especially Rachel’s stories are fleshed out in this coming-of-age novel. It’s heartfelt and melancholy, awkward and bittersweet. It’s not about action-packed summer hijinks, but rather a meditation on the benefits and burdens of friendship.

Berman is a talented writer, and I look forward to seeing what she writes next. In the meantime, Perennials is the perfect literary kickoff to summer.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

Rachel and Fiona quickly become best friends when they attend Camp Marigold each summer. Rachel loves that no matter what else changes, the camp never does. They have aged out of being campers there and are coming back after their freshman year of college for one more year, this time as counselors. This summer, however, will not be like their previous years at camp. The story weaves back and forth from the perspectives of not only Rachel and Fiona, but also other people working at the camp, some of the campers in Rachel's tent, and even the girls' moms.

I often enjoy stories told from multiple points of view, but this one didn't work for me. When we are reading the story from other characters' perspectives, they frequently go off on long tangents about their lives away from camp. Then, once we switch perspectives again, nothing more is said of the characters' lives. I felt it detracted from the story rather than adding to it. The ending to me felt rushed; I would have preferred to see less of the peripheral characters' stories and more of the impact of and reaction to the big events that happened at the end of the book.

2.5 stars

I feel like this book was not the right reader for this book. As I was reading I realized that I do not enjoy reading from a young child’s perspective. I found myself disconnected with her and her best friend. I found the Mom a strange but I also just felt nothing towards her. I unfortunately could not bring myself to finish the book because I was tired of Fiona’s character.
I just believe this book wasn’t for me personally and had nothing to do with the book itself. I found many people have enjoyed this book who are older than me and got something out of it. So in the end it is just a personal opinion that I did not get along with this book

I also feel bad giving it a star rating when I didn’t complete the whole book.

Perennials takes place over a couple summers at Camp Marigold. Each chapter focuses on a different character, which is usually something I enjoy in novels. The first several chapters, however, didn't work very well because the characters were all too similar, so it was difficult to determine who was who. As the story progressed, though, it became easier to follow the various characters and their storylines. The last few chapters were absolutely amazing. So much happens at the end of the novel, and I think I cried for at least the last 20 pages. So despite a slow start, this ended up being a great novel and I highly recommend it.

As someone who never experienced a sleepaway camp, I found myself living vicariously through the characters in Perennials. Mandy Berman creates an incredible view of summer camp life where each camper/counselor lives a completely separate life than the one they are used to at home.

There were many characters discussed in Perennials and each one meshed seamlessly into each other's stories without it feeling confusing. It brought together the sense of a summer spent together - a snippet of time that could never be recreated again even when returning to camp the next summer.

Not until I got all the way through the book did the sense of the meaning of the title Perennials really take shape for me regarding this book. I give Berman kudos for coming up with the perfect description of the novel condensed to one word.

Fiona and Rachel became best friends at their sleep-away camp, Camp Marigold. Fiona came from an upper-class suburban family and Rachel was a city kid with a single mom and a father who had another family. For some reason, their differences strengthened their friendship over the years. Rachel is the risk-taker and Fiona the rule-follower, they always balanced each other out. Now it has been a few years since they were campers and they are returning as counselors after their first year at college. The years and independence of college have only magnified their differences. Camp this year is different, not only is Fiona's little sister, Helen, now at Camp Marigold but they have positions of responsibility. Fiona and Rachel have both changed, but are fighting to maintain their oldest friendship. Will their summer at Camp Marigold be the thing that tears their friendship apart or will the events of the summer only strengthen their relationship?

Perennials is one of those novels that will leave you with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. I only attended summer camp for one week as a teen and this novel invoked a rush of memories. Camp Marigold is everything you envision a summer camp to be. From the tent cabins to the counselor's lodge - it all was so vividly described I felt like I was there. The author's descriptions almost made me think of the summer camp in The Parent Trap. There are two stories going on in this book, though. That of Rachel and Fiona and then Fiona's sister, Helen and her bunkmate. Sheera. All four young women are struggling to figure things out - and that was also nostalgic to me. Being a teen was hard for me so I could relate. Rachel seemed the most "lost" and the "cliche" daddy-issue was a little frustrating, but ultimately I enjoyed the book. There was an ending that I was not expecting - a shocking event happens that takes your breath away. - CLICK HERE FOR SPOILERS

Bottom line - Perennials is a coming-of-age story that will take you back to your own youthful adventures at summer camp. You will spot a little bit of yourself in the characters and in the stories of their time at Camp Marigold. A great read if you are already missing the days of summer.

Details:
Perennials by Mandy Berman
On Instagram
Pages: 288
Publisher: Random House Publishing
Publication Date: 6/6/2017
Buy it Here!

Honestly, I initially requested this ARC because of the cover. Recalling my own camp experiences, the cover gives the reader a sense of nostalgia, even more so when they discover that most of the story takes place in the early 2000s, an era that already seems so long ago. Can we, here in 2017, really be nostalgic for an era that's less than twenty years old?

The structure of the book was unique, almost short story-esque. The different characters' heads Berman gets into all have one thing in common, which is not quite revealed until the end of the book. So the through-line style narrative definitely plays a large part in how the story is told. I can honestly say I've never read anything else like that.

The ending was...unexpected, to say the least. But author Mandy Berman gave the ending a metaphorical feel in the preservation of girlhood, that period of time most of us wish to return to, when life was much simpler. Essentially, the theme of this novel can be best summed up by this quote from Wuthering Heights:

"I wish I were a girl again, half-savage, and hardy, and free."

A summer camp in the Berkshires provides the setting for Mandy Berman's first novel, Perennials (Random House, digital galley), billed as an evocative coming-of-age tale. Rachel Rivkin and Fiona Larkin bond as campers at Camp Marigold, although Rachel is a city girl who lives with her single mom, and Fiona's the middle child of a well-off suburban couple. Their friendship flourishes in the freedom of summer, but by the time they return as counselors after their freshman year, secrets have come between them. As to those secrets, Berman chooses to disclose them in flashback chapters told from different perspectives, including Rachel's mother, Fiona's younger sister and the middle-aged camp director who still sees himself as a young man. Then there's an incident at book's end that undercuts the credibility of the whole. Too bad. Berman is good at depicting the roiling emotions of teenagers and the rituals of summer camp, but the linked short story structure doesn't work, and Perennials is somewhat less than the sum of its parts.--- from On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever

A book that was definitely interesting -- but I'm not really sure what to say about it. It did vividly evoke the summer camp experience and the dramas that play out there -- you might especially like it if you either maintain fond members of your childhood camp or remained involved with camps into adulthood. It's easy to read, with some well-developed characters (most of whom I didn't like very much.) You start to feel sorry for the whole lot of them once you start to understand what their lives are like, and what an annual escape Camp Marigold is from the rest of their lives. I'm not quite sure about the ending and whether it brought the closure to the story that the author intended. I think it was reasonably well-written, especially for a debut novel -- and I'd like to see more from this author.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This was a hard read. I love the title of the book, so I went in blind with that. It was hard for me to get into the book, but the writing wasn't terrible. I just felt the story lacking, and it bores me.

Growing up, I was never allowed to go to camp or play sports. A lot of my friends did, but for whatever reason my parents never really let me do it. Looking back now – it may have been a money thing. I am one of five kids, four of which lived in the same house. I can only imagine how fast those expenses added up and how much worse it would have been had we insisted on camp or sports. Despite that fact, this book still gave me a strong feeling of nostalgia for my younger days. My and my ‘bestie’ still talk, but it is nothing like what it once was and it’s nothing at all comparable to what I thought we would have back in those days.

At the beginning of the book, Rachel and Fiona are only thirteen. By the end of the novel they are nineteen and so much has changed. This book goes over the typical struggles of being a teenager and going through purity and the way it changes our friendships with those around us. Fiona’s self-confidence and weight strugglers really hit home for me and I found myself relating to her in many ways. There are a lot of serious topics in this book – at first I thought it was a YA novel. I guess in some ways it is, depending on where you are in your ‘coming of age’ journey. (I just know I’d die if my 13-year-old niece read this!)

Overall, I did really enjoy the book. The writing is amazing and it is an awesome début novel for Mandy Berman. I will be following her on Goodreads, desperately awaiting the release of her next book. While I did really enjoy this book and all the viewpoints the novel was told from – I did feel that maybe it was a little busy? I love how all the stories connected in the end and I don’t think the ending would have come together as good as it did if it was written differently though.

I give it a solid 4 / 5 stars and I hope to see more from this talented, young author in the future. This is a story about childhood, growing up, and innocence lost. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys camp stories, novels about growing up, and well, just about anyone who is into this type of book. It’s one that I want to add to my shelf for many more reads in the future.

Perennials is a remarkable contemporary novel filled with diversity, female friendship, a gorgeous summer setting, and beautiful writing. Mandy Berman's debut novel captures nostalgia perfectly in what is a poignant coming of age story. The descriptive writing and well-developed characters had me intrigued. The story manages to evoke emotions making this quite the bittersweet read. If you're looking for an excellent beach read, be sure to check out Perennials today!

What a beautiful debut! This novel brings to mind those quintessential camp experiences, the temporary lives we create for ourselves, and weaves together the individual stories of the characters into a powerful narrative of friendship. At under 300 pages, this makes for a great binge read.

This is a well-written book with numerous points of view. The chapters are like short stories with different leading characters and we see how they relate to each other. It's an interesting way to tell the story and keeps the reader's attention throughout. Very entertaining.

I never went to summer camp when I was growing up. I wasn't deprived, or anything like that. My parents would have let me go, had I asked — I simply was (and am) of the antisocial sort. I was the type of kid to haunt the local library during summer break. I wasn't one for physical activity. LOL.

However, I do like reading about summer camps — through them I experience what is maybe lacking from my own childhood. Truthfully, I don't feel I missed much . . . but still, the topic and setting of summer camp often makes for interesting (albeit cheesy, usually) stories. How does Perennials measure up? Well, it's not interesting or cheesy. It's just lifeless and lame.

Firstly, this novel has more structural problems than a termite-ridden set of wooden stairs. The first two chapters take place in 2000, at the summer camp that acts as the focal point of this novel, and then randomly switches to 2006. The two characters that are seen in the 2000 chapters are still around, but the reader is suddenly introduced to a ton of new campers, none of them fleshed out whatsoever. I think the main characters were supposed to be... Rachel? and . . . I'm blanking on the other girl's name. Yeah, I just finished this one and can't remember any of the characters' names. That's bad! Bad bad bad.

So the plot hops from character to character and situation to situation, and almost none of it is necessary to furthering the story, nor does most of it come together by the story's end. Either this one leaves a ton of loose ends hanging, or I was too bored to care. I sorta get what the author was going for: the wide ranging impact summer camp can have on young teens, but the problem is this novel is just too short. There are way too many characters crammed into this story, and all of them want to be the main protagonist. None of them are written well at all, and I just . . . God, I'm boring myself talking about this.

I honestly didn't have high hopes for Perennials, but I was expecting to at least get a breezy, fun summer read. Nope. This is just bland, flavorless melodrama populated with excessively, offensively boring characters and trite situations.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free review copy, which was given in an exchange for an honest review.