3.5/5 stars
I really enjoyed this book overall. I think it’s awesome to have books produced by #ownvoices and it was nice to see an attempt to portray mental illness. I love how the protagonist, at 17, is unapologetically gay even with a homophobic mother. That strength in self is inspiring.

***spoiler alert below****
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All that being said, there were a few things that I felt kind of missed the mark. I was glad to see a protagonist with PTSD, but then I felt like it was almost glazed over. Like “if you fall in love PTSD disappears”. I felt that it was a little misleading about the severity of PTSD and the extreme difficulty people have in overcoming it. It can be a lifelong journey. I also don’t love that the evil in this book is a queer cis woman. I don't think Lauren was fully fleshed out, and just felt almost too pure evil. I think enough people have experience with toxic sexual harassing men that it was almost jarring to see it in Lauren. It felt almost like combining typically petty high school jealousies with a weird crush based on toxic masculinity. Just kind of a miss for me with lauren.

But, I loved how the author took us to a serene forest environment! And portrayed camp life so well that I wished I was on the lake with the campers & counselors. Overall I enjoyed this book.

Thanks netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

I really wanted to like this book based on the premise and setting but this book was hard to get through. I did not like the main character at all and that made the book hard to read.

This ARC was provided for review, but in no way affects the following impartial and unbiased review:
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2,5*
Pros: LGBT+ leads. Set in a summer camp, full of activities and games. Witty and fun banter. Deals with important issues like bullying, facing phobias, homophobic and disapproving parents. Wholesome and fluffy f/f relationship.
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Cons: Slow and shallow, no real plot to it. Depression is mentioned but not approached at all.

I’m not gonna lie, I kind of skimmed through the last hundred pages or so. I completely lost the little interest I had in this story. I feel like there wasn’t much plot there?

Emma is stuck at a camp where she had a very bad experience some years ago and while there were the words PTSD, depression, and anxiety on pages, it felt like a second thought to all. She also wants to be kicked out of camp but don’t do anything major that would do it? And when she has an opportunity she’s like ‘oh no I couldn’t do that’ and it just??? doesn’t make sense.

And enough with the big meanie bully I don’t like this trope, and even less when that character has a secret crush on the one they’re bullying. NOPE.

There was some talk about consent and privacy (especially with the letters) but Emma absolutely didn’t react at all when Vivian looked through her phone without her knowing? She was fine with it?? That’s definitely not something to do hello????

I did like the friendship between Emma and Gwen (and Gwen as a character in general) and the same for Walter.

The rest at the end felt too easy.

Thanks for the author and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

Let's start by saying that I absolutely adore stories about summer camps. This was not an exception. I really liked it! I loved all of the representation and in my opinion it was written quite good. I loved the characters, but I'd like to get some more background on them. They felt a bit bland, except for our main character Emma.

Speaking of characters, I loved Vivian. Even though I didn't understand why she did some things she did, I couldn't help but like her. She's quite mysterious and I like that. Also Gwen, can I be bffs with her as well? I despised Emma's mother, I just don't understand how she can be like that to her own daughter.

The plot was a bit predictable in my opinion, but that didn't mean it wasn't fun. I enjoyed myself while reading this book and I would recommend reading it if you're looking for a fun, quick and easy read!

The idea was great! Very descriptive. The story really got started for me, when she met her friend at the camp.

I had a difficult time reading this, because my copy didn't have paragraph indentions.

The cover design caught my attention.

Emma Lane is a newly-minted adult who for the past several years has been living under the custody of her father. It is now summer and she is being driven to her mother's to spend time with her before she goes off into the big bad world. But not all is what she hoped it would. When arriving at her mother's she is told that instead of staying at her mother's home, her mum is going on a cruise... but without her. Instead, she is thrown into the world which she escaped from as a kid, Camp Mapplewood.

Camp Mapplewood and her have history that goes way back, but one of the main points which Emma makes early on is the mental health issues which she has inherited from it. The only connection that she does seem to have left since her last encounter is her friend, turned pen pal, Jessie.

Emma seems like one of those people who doesn't think before she speaks or doesn't like it when she doesn't get her own way. This is expressed when she realises that she has to spend the summer at camp rather than staying with her mother. For instance, the first thing she tries to do is ring her Dad up to complain about how she is made to go to camp, rather than staying with her mother. Yes, this can be seen as in some ways understandable, due to her previous experiences of being there. But then, this can be seen to take a different turn of trying to upset people and their relationships so that she gets what she wants. It's not charming. It's ignorant and selfish.

There are also moments which present itself where it is clear that there are times when people are trying to help her or offer a hand in defeat and instead of taking it she snuffs it in a childish demeanour. I hate to say it, there are not many books where I have come across where from the very beginning my opinion of a character is not likeable. But it is true, Emma Lane is not likeable or relatable. The only thing I truly feel for her is when her mother suggests that going to camp would make her straight, which is understandably blood-boiling in any situation.

But this is when my rant is over and my opinions begin to soften. Although I'm not the biggest fan of Emma, I did begin to like her more with her relationships with the Black family. How she treated Gwen as a friend when she didn't have any; with Vivian and how she began to soften to the idea that maybe sharing things is not a bad thing, especially when you are crying for help and finally Julie, lovely and motherly Julie who helped her decide that her future can mean something, even when you feel like you are not getting anywhere.

So I don't feel as though this book is a bad attempt, no way. It is just that sometimes its ok to not like someone completely, but that is normal as its like life itself. You can't be forced to like every single person you meet. It is just in this case, Emma needed someone to open her up and show her what is really important. It's crazy to think that when I did finish this book I felt some sadness that I didn't get to see Emma in the next stage of her life, which is not something that I would have ever thought about in the beginning.

At the beginning I was adamant that I wanted to give this book a two star. However, I think that as Emma improved, so did my opinion of her and now I give it a three star.

This was a good YA read. It was heavy on dialogue but very enjoyable nonetheless. This book tells the story of a young girl whose mother has shipped her off to camp and the love story that develops between her and her camp counselor. This was a great LGBTQ+ read that I will definitely recommend to others!

I am reluctant to rate anything I read for free and before publication negatively because I by no means want to harm the livelihood and future of the author involved but there was a lot in this book that was really problematic. I am just fine with writing that isn't exactly my taste or characters that I don't love 100%--my issues with this book are not along those lines. My main concern here is the extreme lack of reflection and awareness involving consensual relationships. The character of Lauren was kind of a representation of the harmful belief "ha ha I can pick on you because I have a crush on you." That behavior should not be normalized in heterosexual relationships and it ABSOLUTELY should not be dismissed as funny, unassuming, or blasé in queer teenage relationships when queer teens are at a significantly higher likelihood of being in an abusive relationship. Consent was spoken of a few times but it was not taken seriously. Instead, several characters steamrolled over the scenario without it developing into any sort of conversation. The whole thing was just icky.

On a less serious note, several of the characters just felt like cardboard caricatures of people rather than fully-realized individuals. Fanfiction and shipping was a significant part of how I came to terms with my sexuality and, again, it just felt like a joke. I know there are people that talk about "shipping" real life people and make jokes about it but when fanfiction is such a staple of the queer community, I feel like it should be taken at least a little bit seriously. I'm not saying it can't be joked about at all...just. This book felt a little tone deaf.

They are going to Maine to visit mom. I loved the cover. I didn't think the tone was too childish but it didn't click with me .

This is a decent foray into YA LBGTQ+ fiction, but the writing just felt a bit slow and stilted. Definitely good for if you aren't devoting your full attention to what you're reading.

The cute cover and premise of sapphic summer love at camp lured me in, and I whole-heartedly wish I enjoyed it more than I did. Unfortunately this book didn’t hit the mark for me, but it may appeal more to younger readers as it’s a quick easy read.

My first issue was that the development of the mental health aspect felt shallow to me. Emma suffers from depression and anxiety, including a crippling fear of the woods due to a traumatic incident in her past, but we rarely see her struggle with this. The book pays lip service to her issues instead of incorporating them properly into the storyline so that Emma goes from someone who supposedly has serious neuroses that majorly impact her life to the point where she had to be pulled out of school to a girl who has no issues facing her triggers and navigates everyday life with ease. I needed more to show WHY she was able to overcome these hangups instead of her being magically cured all of a sudden (with the minor implication that her love interest may have some of the credit).

I struggled with the one-dimensional characters who seemed to behave as best befitted the plot instead of like recognizable human beings. Emma’s childhood friend Julie apparently brings the letters Emma’s written to her over the years to read and re-read while she’s at camp, which seems strange to me given that they’re not very close anymore, and it comes off contrived simply because Emma’s letters are plot-relevant and need to show up in order to be used in people’s schemes. Lauren is the token Mean Girl which is a trope the author attempts to subvert by having her crush on Emma, but instead of making her a complicated character with conflicting emotions and motivations, she simply turns into a predatory lesbian stock type who keeps crossing boundaries with an unrealistically oblivious Emma (who doesn’t seem to realize that Lauren’s attempt at hand-holding and other obvious come-ons indicate her romantic interest).

Gwen is probably the most likable character in the book, but she’s basically Emma’s platonic Manic Pixie Dream Girl who is there to provide Emma with friendship and support and ship her with the love interest, she has no personality or interests outside of what’s happening with Emma. Gwen is ostracized by the other girls, but we don’t even get any nuance with her character on how that affects her, because it only matters in how it relates to Emma and her love interest Vivian.

Which brings me to the romance which was the biggest disappointment to me. If I honestly felt the chemistry between Emma and Vivian, I could’ve excused the other flaws, but when the central hook of the story is the Emma/Vivian relationship and it falls flat, there’s very little that can redeem it.

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Unable to contain myself anymore, I held Vivian’s head in my hands and pulled her into a fiery and passionate kiss. Her hands worked their way around my body, feeling each crevice, each line along my physique.

I lay on my back as she matched my body’s form by climbing on top of me. My hands ventured over her curved body, exploring. We pulled apart and opened our eyes. Staring deeply at one another, we breathed in tandem, our eyes searching; mine were full of wonder, hers of curiosity.
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Obviously as an ARC, the text is subject to change, but this sample is indicative of the prose throughout the story which is too simplistic for my tastes. The banter isn’t any better with the verbal sparring sounding nothing like the way teens would actually talk, and I had to re-read some conversations to try and work out what was intended by the ‘witty dialogue’ because it felt so forced.

I appreciate the author’s efforts to bring greater diversity to YA in terms of LGBT+ characters and mental health representation, but this book’s premise was a lot more promising than its execution. While it didn’t work for me on any level, there are many other positive reviews out there and if it sounds like this might be up your alley, I would always suggest that you try it since my opinion doesn’t go for everyone!

Oh, this was unfortunate.

This is a YA, coming of age story about a lesbian finding love at summer camp; a summer camp which is tied up in a traumatising incident she had years ago. The themes and intent of this book are all very well-meaning, but the way in which it was executed was not very good at all. The writing isn't all bad; the author is trying for a sort of romantic comedy type feel, with humour and hijinks and sarcasm. Some of that gets pulled off well, but the majority of it just leaves me with a huge 'missed a step while going downstairs' feeling. Punchlines to jokes that weren't well executed, witty rejoinders that fell flat, banter that had no backbone and felt very meaningless. I get the <i>intention</i> of all the relationships that Emma had, but the way that they were built (or rather, not built) was so shallow. The book <i>told</i> me that Emma and Gwen were best friends, but I didn't feel that. The book <i>told</i> me that she cultivated a found family at camp, but I didn't feel that. The book <i>told</i> me that Emma and Vivian fell in love, and I certainly did not feel that.

And like. Yikes. Let's talk about Vivian. I'm was so sure that the book was doing the young adult thing were there's an unlikable character who does bad things, but by the end of the book they learn their lesson and they're a better person. But... no. Vivian does so much shady stuff that just isn't addressed. Going through Emma's phone, unfairly delegating tasks, cutting little comments and actions... The book focuses a lot on Lauren's bullying and calls her out for it, but honestly, a lot of the things Vivian does are not cute and could also be construed as bullying. And the thing is, I know that the author is NOT trying to be malicious, and portray a toxic relationship as something good. I know all this stuff is INTENDED to be light-hearted and humorous. But it just didn't work out that way. I didn't enjoy this relationship at all.

And unfortunately, the book in itself was just kind of dull. I skimmed through the last quarter.

Kudos to the author for writing it (I see that it was a NaNoWriMo book). It had some good things to say about coming out and being yourself, bad parents, and talked about therapy and mental health in positive ways. And I liked the way it ended.

But sadly, the bones of this book are shaky through and through. Wouldn't really recommend it for a young adult audience without some significant changes.

More like 3.5 stars

Emma has a lot going on in her life, and her mum dumping her at camp adds to the challenges. Camp delivers pain and suffering but also growth and hope.

There's definitely a lot of angst here, but given the YA audience, I think it delivers quite well and is a good read.

Really enjoyed this young adult/new adult novel. Pansexual and lesbian MCs. Summer camp romance.

Emma has faced a ton of challenges - depression, messy parent divorce, homophobic mum - but has finally graduated high school, is nearly 18 and has just one major hurdle left - two months court mandated visitation with her mum. But when she gets to Maine, her mum has decided to leave her behind at summer camp. Emma hates camp; is panic-inducingly afraid of the woods; and is stuck rooming with a mean-girl bully. But Emma also meets 19 year-old camp counselor, Vivian, so things may not be all bad.

**I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

I really enjoyed this story. It was easy to read and the characters were unique in their own ways. I particularly loved Walter and how he interacted with Emma and his family. This story is one that is common in the world that includes an absent parent that is not willing to accept their child for who they are, a bully who is used to getting their own way and an unexpected friendship.
A beautiful story that had me laughing out loud in places an grimacing in others over the actions of one of the characters but even the way that was handled by the writer was, in my eyes, interesting and appropriate
Thank you to NetGalley and WattPad for the opportunity to review this eARC

On seeing the cover, I wanted to know what the book was about because the colors are really pretty and actually do remind me of a summer night sky. The blurb sounded interesting and I expected there to be a lot of extravagant pranking as Emma desperately tries to get out of summer camp. And I was curious to read a story that takes place in a summer camp.

Let me start by saying that, according to my Kindle, I only read the first 25% of the book.

What I liked:
Although there is only a small glimpse of Emma's relationship with her father, you can immediately tell that they have a good relationship and I would have loved to see more of this before she gets dropped off and her mother's.
Emma and Vivian constantly bicker but in a funny way. Emma is determined to get kicked out of camp, while Vivian seems determined to keep her there. Their interactions were fun to read.

What I didn't like:
Emma's mother. She is a whirlwind, definitely unfit to raise a child and even have the slightest say in her life. Yet, for the sake of the plot, she decides Emma will go to this summer camp that traumatized her when she was younger. It strikes me as a little unrealistic that she would do this without even mentioning it to Emma's father. I was happy to see her character disappear at the end of chapter one.
Emma herself. She is a confusing character. She obviously doesn't want to go to this summer camp, but, unlike a good 17-year-old puts up hardly any fuss when she gets dropped off. Even after that, her attempts to get kicked out are limited to making a mess in her cabin and sneaking food out of the canteen.
Very confusing. Does Emma know the other campers or doesn't she? At first, we are made to believe that she doesn't, but then she does and there is bad blood between them. Sometimes, it actually felt like I was reading a sequel to something and I didn't have all the necessary information for this book to make sense. But not only the characters were confusing, but also the writing itself; more than once, I had the impression connecting scenes were missing. One minute they are in location A doing something, the next they are in location B doing something else.
Summer camp. I have never been to one so correct me if I'm wrong on this. Would it not be possible for kids to leave if they didn't feel good being there? Or would they be forced to stay there against their will, even if it were bad for their mental health?

Overall impression of the book.
Considering I only read 25% of the book, I can't say I enjoyed it very much.. It was, in one word, confusing. Character interactions seem okay but confusing because of the lack of backstory given to the reader. Aside from that, the plot seems unrealistic and full of little things beta readers should have pointed out to the author.
And maybe the book gets better as you go along, but I will never know because I couldn't make it further.

Story overall is not very well written. It meanders and does not go anywhere or seem to have a point. Characters confusing and not developed for the reader.

was lucky to receive an ARC of this lovely book #NightOwlsandSummerSkies and I really enjoyed it. It was a light, quick read but I like how it talked about ways of coping with anxiety and even some ways to overcome them (with the right support). Thank you to #NetGalley and #Wattpadbooks for this #ARC, which will be available for purchase June 30, 2020. #bookstagram #bookworm #readingthroughthealphabet #yabooks #pridebooks

Night owls and summer skies is beautifully written. It is a coming of age YA genre. Sullivan really places you in the setting with her writing. I can almost feel myself come alive with the teenage angst that is to be had at the summer camp. This is a book that will make you want to go to summer camp in hopes to find yourself.