Lara, 17, had a crush on Chase for what seemed like forever. Everyone knew it. It was all she talked about to her closest friends. When senior year arrived and Chase really took notice of her, Lara was beyond thrilled. The star quarterback wanted to date her and of course she said yes. But lingering behind her happiness and disbelief of finally getting to be with her forever crush were thoughts of someone else. The person she had a summer fling with who just happened to enter the high school doors- watching her and Chase flirting. Jasmine was supposed to be with her mother in Asheville, not in NYC. They had said their goodbyes via text with a simple heart emoji. For some unknown reason, that was the end of their communication. But now, Jasmine was a part of Lara’s world and that confused her to no end.

This story was reminiscent of Grease with the summer loving theme and with the couple never thinking they would see each other again. But this story involved a sort of love triangle. Lara really liked Chase and also Jasmine. She was actually confused about her feelings for Jasmine and throughput the story tried to understand them.

This was told from Lara’s perspective with flashbacks from their summer together. Lara and Jasmine were interesting characters. When they were together during summer vacation, they got along and shared feelings and communicated well. Once they were in the same high school, it seemed that they had little to say to each other. This was the frustrating part. They hardly communicated in a very meaningful way for most of the book. Lara thought Jasmine hated her and apparently Jasmine thought she meant nothing to her because she was with Chase. Even though Lara’s friends readily accepted Jasmine as part of their group, Lara and Jasmine still kept their distance. It wasn’t until late in the story that there was any sort of in-depth conversation. It was almost like the characters expected each other to read their minds to know how they felt. They didn’t effectively communicate this with words on a one to one level until there was a dramatic confrontation at the Homecoming dance.
I like stories with open communication and emotional depth, and there wasn’t enough to explain why these characters really liked/loved each other, including the Chase and Lara relationship.

I did like the diverse characters and the supportive parents and friends. The scene when Lara discussed her bisexuality with her mother was heartwarming and emotional. This added a level of depth to the story.

Overall, even though I didn’t care for the lack of communication between Lara and Jasmine, I think teenagers will find this part relatable and the story entertaining.

An ARC was given for an honest review.

This is a sweet teen romcom. I have a weird fondness for YA books from the POV of Popular Girls so I enjoyed that aspect of it, and understood how that played into the love triangle. I also thought Lara questioning her sexuality and temporarily deciding she's straight because her experience didn't perfectly line up with some of her queer peers is something that felt realistic and that I think will be valuable for a lot of teens (and beyond) to read. (Also brief but explicit canon aro-ace representation which again, is validating to see.)

Ultimately it did feel a bit like the main romance here was between Lara and her own self-discovery as opposed to between Lara and Chase or Lara and Jasmine, but honestly that's fine with me. I think a lot of teen readers will be cool with this.

Larissa has had a crush on one guy her entire three years of high school so far and everyone knows is, Chase Harding. He's tall, he's handsome and he's never really talked to her all that much before. When senior year starts Chase shows some interest in her, and suddenly she finds herself dating him. All her dreams are coming true. The only problem is, she is haunted by the memory of her summer and a girl, Jasmine, she met while staying in the Outer Banks. When jasmine shows up to her first day of senior year, her whole set of plans fall apart.

This book feels really real. It is the kind of book I love that exist for teens, and wish I had access to when I was younger. Larissa struggles a lot with understanding her sexuality, her friendship group and her feelings for two people and what it all means. Dahlia Adler really creates the angst, doubts and worries that Larissa is experiencing, especially around her identity. I loved the storytelling between two timelines of then and now and seeing both Larissa and Jasmine's relationship and Larissa and Chase's relationship. Though I am not typically a fan of love triangles, it really worked in this book, which was quite surprising to me. The part of the book that I struggled with was Chase's sudden interest in Larissa. She spent three years (or more) pining over him, and suddenly on the first day of senior year he is interested in her. I wish that was explored a little bit more.

One of the things I struggled with in the book was the diversity. It seemed that there was the introduction of certain characters, including the non binary character, and characters of different races, to have diversity, it didn't feel natural to me. It really bothered me. These things did impact my enjoyment of the book.

Overall this book had a good exploration of self-discovery and learning about yourself. I think that this was explored really well. I received a copy of this from NetGalley and the publisher for an open and honest review. All opinions are 100% mine.

Grab some sunscreen and a beach towel for a hot summer romance. Did I mention that it has a bisexual love triangle? Cool for the Summer’s protagonist, Lara, has had googly eyes for Chase Harding for the entirety of her high school career. But when Lara spends the summer at a beach town, she meets a girl named Jasmine and realizes that she has the hots for her too. So when Chase suddenly starts making moves on Lara, she isn’t sure what to do…

Named after Demi Lovato’s song, Cool for the Summer is the perfect young adult read. I love Lara’s character development, the questioning of her sexuality, and finding comfort in her Jewish and Russian roots. The easy-to-follow plot kept me turning pages wanting to find out what would happen next. Who does Lara choose?…

Content warnings: sexual content, biphobia

Title: Cool for the Summer
Author: Dahlia Adler
Genre: YA
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 5/11/2021

Cool for the Summer is a light, breezy YA coming of age novel about Lara. Lara spent the summer in the Outer Banks in North Carolina and had a summer fling with Jasmine. When she starts her senior year in the fall, her long-time crush Chase asks her on a date. Dating Chase is all she has ever dreamed about but she just can’t forget Jasmine who has also transferred to her school.

What I liked:
•I loved how this book explored Lara’s sexuality in a very thoughtful way. Lara knows she has feelings for Jasmine but isn’t sure “what” she is. I can relate to this struggle – I felt desperate to understand the feelings I was having and put a label on it, but none felt right yet. Our society puts an emphasis on labels and once you realize you’re not “cishet,” there can be a lot of pressure to pick your new label (this is also why I’ve opted for queer to opt-out of the labels). I haven’t seen a novel explore this aspect of coming out and it really resonated with me.
•I enjoyed the dual timelines between the summer and the fall.
•The representation was great especially showcasing characters that are asexual or aromantic. I’ve never seen a book even mention aromantic. I felt like Lara’s friends are well-developed and feel authentic.
•I appreciated how sex-positive this book was. The acts weren’t overly emphasized like the pinnacle of dating or being a teenager and also did not show shame about engaging in these acts. Rather, they were depicted as acts that allow us to connect intimately.

What I didn’t like:
•I felt like the book needed more plot. I am all about a character-driven plot but this needed a bit more and a bit more conflict.
•Chase was so, so boring and so perfect. I wish he had been a bit more developed beyond being a handsome football player. It felt like an easy choice for me.

This book left me happy with a smile on my face. Overall enjoyed this book. I would recommend this book as a light, breezy summer read especially to folks who enjoy YA.

This coming-of-age YA story centers around Lara, who returns to school with newfound confidence, catching the eye of her long-time crush. But she can't stop thinking about the summer she spent with Jasmine, the girl she thought she'd never see again--until she walks right past her in the hall.

I always find it refreshing to read YA books that center around characters who are navigating their own sexual identity. The way Lara processes the feelings she wasn't expecting, the parental/friend support, all felt very positive.

I will share that I found it a bit of a slow burn, even though it is a very quick read. The timeline flips between now and the summer, which was an engaging way to unpack the summer and everything that Lara and Jasmine experience together.

Thank you to NetGalley, Wednesday Books and St. Martins Press for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this one! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Overall, I love the themes of self-discovery in this book, but it took me a VERY LONG TIME to get into the flow of the writing style. I also still just question the abruptness of Chase's sudden attraction to her. It was like "oh, she's blonde, that's more like it."

I felt like most of the characters were under-developed, with the exception of Lara. I think I just wanted more from this one. But, all of that being said, I can already think of teens that will love this book and I can't wait to add it to my book talking list for my high school's GSA teens.

For Libraries: If you have fans of awesome LGBT+ romances, look no further!
For RA purposes: LGBT+, masturbation, oral sex, sex, underage drinking

Cool for the Summer

YA is diverse AF and I’m here for it!

This story follows Larissa who was forced to go south for the summer and stay with her mom’s boss’ family in their beach house (for her moms work). She meets a girl and they quickly become friends....and possibly more than friends....
Fast forward to senior year, her crush of a million years Chase finally notices her and asks her out...but then Jasmine, the girl from the summer shows up at her school and Larissa doesn’t know what any of her feelings mean.

This is a cute coming of age, and coming into your sexuality story. It’s over all message of it’s okay to be confused and not want labels is great. Larissa’s process of fearing what her friends and family would think of her, as well as comparing Jeff own feelings to want the “normal label” is a great theme for YA. Normalizing feelings and that everyone’s process is different and can’t be defined by others, but by your own story, and when you are ready for it.
The overall story was well written, my only two issues were
1. Chase noticing her is so out of the blue, in doesn’t fully flow with the story line
2. The character “diversity” for the most part seemed to be checking a box. There were a lot of weird descriptions of race of minor characters, and a few of them made no sense, like the “white or Latina” comment
Otherwise the story was great, and it was one of the first YA I have read that had great Jewish representation, especially with the Shabbat dinner scene.

This is definitely a book I would recommend to my students and/or have in my classroom (maybe not all Middles, but High School for sure).

4 ⭐️

I have been on a Contemporary kick recently because 2021 is giving us ALL the Bi Bi Bi books. And though I wasn't a big fan of the writing at times, Cool For the Summer was still a fun quick read. This Demi Lovato title inspired book is perfect for the beach or by the pool. Honestly, all you would have had to say is Demi's name and I would have picked it up, tbh. Also, I apparently had no prior knowledge that it was inspired by Grease. I should have known from the synopsis. But it can now join Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales on my Grease retellings shelf. I wish I could have read it as a teenager. 💕

As a side note, and nothing against Dahlia, but can we please stop calling girls b*tches. Please and thank you. It's truly exhausting.

***Thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy.***

First of all it is so fun to find my own name in a book! But I really enjoyed this book. I feel that the Dahlia did a great job balancing the past and the present in a way that allowed the readers to really understand Larissa's struggle with who she really wanted to be with. There is Chase the perfect boyfriend, one who is kind, courteous, and a loving big brother. Then there is Jasmine who is exotic, and challenges Larissa to go outsider her box and explore new things. I also love the fact that by the end of the book Larissa still has not decided on a title for herself. Instead she decides to follow her heart wherever that may lead. Overall just a great book for kids who may be struggling to figure out who they are and what that means.

The story follow Lara as she starts senior year. The quarterback she’s been crushing on for years is finally interested in her, but also the girl she had a thing with over the summer has now transferred to her school.

This one was slow to start for me but ultimately was a sweet coming of age story as Lara navigates her sexuality after a summer at the beach. The story is set in present day with occasional flashbacks to summer memories.

I liked seeing Lara gain confidence and figure out who she is and seeing the good Jasmine brought out in her. She returns to school transformed, and while it helps her land her dream man, it also forces her to confront her feelings while taking a closer look at how her friends treat her.

This is a cute beach read with LGBTQ representation, but I wish the characters had a little more depth because the friends felt superficial. I enjoyed it and recommend if you like YA coming of age stories or are looking for bi rep.

Love love love the cover, so original and cute! Cute story, loved the rep within. There were quite a few comments in regards to eating and weight that might be triggering or fat phobic.

Loved the triangle and the bonds formed.

This was really interesting! I haven't really read any books with specifically bi leads, so I really enjoyed that aspect of it. This is basically just your typical coming of age YA novel with lgbtq rep of a girl trying to figure out herself which is nice! I really liked the dual points of view from the past and present, although sometimes I noticed that with the 'then' and 'now' parts that showed the past and present were mostly accurate but some of the 'now' was included in some of the 'then' chapters which made me get a little lost, but it wasn't that annoying. I do think that Chase as a character was a bit underdeveloped, his like for Lara was quite abrupt, and maybe it was meant to be that way, but I think it could've been better if maybe it showed him seeing these changes in Lara and his whole thought process in beginning to date her.

Cool For The Summer is the book I needed when I first discovering my sexuality.

I had my doubts about this book in the beginning. I wasn’t sure if I would like it, started out a bit slow for me. But luckily I was patient and it picked up pretty quick.

In this book we follow Lara who’s had a crush on the quarterback for years, but over the summer she falls for a girl named Jasmine.

I really enjoyed this book. It makes me happy that teenagers today have books like this. I have been in Lara’s shoes not knowing if it was okay to have feelings like that.

While this book does cover some deep topics it’s still a fun and sweet story! It’s the perfect beach read.

Also I gotta give a shout out to Wednesday Designs for killing it on the cover once again! 😻

This was fun enough, and I appreciate the bi rep, but the writing style and tone just didn't fully click for me.

Cool for the Summer is a young adult contemporary romance featuring a main character who is questioning her sexuality after a summer spent with a girl she may have feelings for.
I loved this book. It is told in dual perspectives, one in the past following Larissa’s summer with Jasmine, and one in the present where her long-time crush Chase has taken interest in her. She is dating Chase which is exactly what she’s always wanted so why is she still thinking about Jasmine?
The inner monologue of Larissa sorting out her feelings about liking a girl for the first time are so relatable, honest, and validating. She wonders if she is valid in her identity because she believed herself to be straight for most of her life since she’s always known she likes boys. The conversations surrounding coming out later in life will definitely resonate with a lot of readers, as I know it did with me.
I think this is more of a character based novel, so if you go into it with the expectation that a lot of it is Larissa dealing with her newfound feelings I think you’ll really enjoy. The plot is definitely there, but it’s a lot of exploration into the different characters and less action.

Conversation on diversity:
-There is a line discussing a non-binary character named Taylor that comes across very odd and while I don’t think that was the author’s intention it still rubbed me the wrong way. Larissa, the main character, comments on two characters in a relationship and questions whether to call Taylor a “girlfriend, boyfriend, or non-binary friend”. There are other terms to use like partner or significant other that would be more appropriate.
-There is one scene where Larissa is at a party and she lists all the people she’s meeting with their race, sexuality, and gender and it feels like a cheap way to add diversity. I’m all for diversity in books but listing them off like that felt weird; however, I don’t agree with some other reviews I’ve seen saying that race has to be “important” to the story to count. Like, as a POC myself, we don’t need to justify our spot in stories by having it have some life lesson or whatever.

Overall, I really loved this book and I will definitely be rereading it. This made me feel so seen and the questioning and queer rep is great.

This Grease inspired contemporary was such a quick and fun read. I got utterly swept up in Lara's story and really enjoyed the exploration of self-discovery. It felt like a believable high school romance, with all the extra complications and tensions between characters. An incredibly bingeable and cute read. However, the representation of POC characters felt a bit off and therefore reduced my rating.

I received an e-arc of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

4/5 stars

I'm going to be completely honest, at the start of the book I was really unsure if I w was going to like this book because I really didn't like the friendship dynamics as they were being portrayed. However I pressed on really wanting to give this book a shot and I'm so glad that I did. The aspects that I was not enjoying didn't seem to come up much which is when one "friend" calls another a bitch as this supposedly enduring term. I just find it really awful and not something that a friend would really call another friend.

Once I got over this bit though I actually really ended up liking this story. I loved the dual timeline and how they mingled into each other and one event would trigger a memory to make the feelings even stronger.

I will say that I am a straight white female so I can't really speak on the representation but I did find it enjoyable and loved the exploration of each character. Each character had their own moment of shining through in the end but I enjoyed how each one experienced things differently and came to terms with things differently and that just felt so real.

There was also a moment when the main character told someone that they had every right to be mad and it was such a beautiful moment and I really loved it.

Be still my bisexual heart. Cool for the Summer is the book budding me would have loved back when I was first figuring out my sexuality. It follows the journey of Larissa (Lara for short) as she navigates the road road of sexuality when she goes back to school and finds that the boy she's been crushing on for a long time is finally into her only for the girl who she had a thing with over the summer to show up at her school for her senior year. Told in a dual chronological sort of way, Cool for the Summer tells the story of Lara's journey with Chase and flashbacks with Jasmine.

As I was reading this, I found myself in these pages. I felt Lara's deep denial for her feelings for Jasmine. I felt her confusion on attempting to figure out if she's ACTUALLY into girls. The way Dahlia Adler writes that gay panic and intense desire to allow those feelings creep to the surface is something I went through myself when I was younger.

I loved the prose of this as well! Lara's inner monologue is witty, passionate, heartfelt, and hilarious at times. The entire scene of her telling her mom made me cry because whew I FELT THAT. I highly recommend this book to everyone who's questioned their sexuality and is looking to find themselves in the pages of a book.

“...the real fun was never in following the crowd, and that sometimes the best things were the scary and the unexpected.”
•
Cool for the Summer follows Larissa on her journey of self-discovery. “It’s about the things we want and the things we need. And it’s about the people who will let us be who we are.”
•
I loved this book!! It was so relevant to what so many young adults go through and should be on every library shelf. The characters were diverse, the parents were supportive, and the entire plot was just incredibly realistic. I loved how Larissa came to own who she may or may not be and how the author, didn’t push Larissa. At such a young age, it’s important for teens to know that they won’t be stigmatized or labeled just for trying to discover who they were meant to be.

Thank you to NetGalley, Wednesday Books, and the author, Dahlia Adler, for the eARC in return for an honest review. I cannot wait for the release next month!!
•
Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5)/5