A great, quick romance read that felt fast-paced, had great LGBTQ+ rep, and a very nice plot. I liked the characters a lot, although I don’t think Lara should be friends with Shannon (she’s kind of toxic). But the romance is great and the internal struggle on her feelings is well-written and developed. Very good book.

It took awhile for me to get into the story because the characters seemed so shallow: Larissa was too focused on getting Chase and making sure that her bestie Shannon approved of everything - her hair, clothes, etc.; Chase "finally" noticed Larissa because she changed her look; Shannon had to control everything with the friend group. None of them were likeable at first. But the flashbacks gave a truer impression of Larissa's character, and the relationship between Larissa and Jasmine eventually grew on me, although I wish there had been more evidence of their growing attraction. Overall, I appreciated Larissa's journey as she discovered who she really is and learned to stand on her own rather than buoyed up by her friends' expectations.

4 stars.

I was a big fan of the bisexual representation in this book. and without any of the harmful tropes that bisexual people are just greedy or doing it for the attention. I love that this book went deep into how people can grow and that what you think you've always want isn't ACTUALLY what you want.

Lara is a sweet kind girl, with mainly good friends (tbh I didn't like Shannon much as a person- much less as a friend). She has a seriously loving and kind mother and overall a decent life. I love that she GROWS as a person, rather than just being this being some perfect coming out story. Sure some people know they're queer right away - but a lot of people spend a long time questioning it. As Lara says in the story - she didn't know that she could be more than just girls fooling around. And of course I'm a real sucker for an accepting parent scene.

My only issue with this book is where it ended. I like the stylistic choice and the background seemed very apt but I would have loved to see a flashforward of them on graduation or prom day. So that we could see Lara & Jasmine in the happy relationship they deserve.

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The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lara has been crushing hard on Chase Harding, the high school QB, all throughout high school. But once she finally gets the guy...why can’t she stop thinking about the girl she met over the summer?⠀
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Cool for the Summer is a cute, summery, romance read that explores friendship, love + sexuality. I really liked our main characters + how the storyline jumped back and forth between the new school year and summer. I think this book also sends a lot of positive messages regarding body image + sexuality. ⠀
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There were a few areas i disliked about the story though. A lot of the issues with Lara + Jasmine come from miscommunication. SO much could have been different if they just talked + nothing bothers me more than when conflict is only created from miscommunication. The way the author talked about certain characters also rubbed me the wrong way (“what do you call it when someone’s neither a girlfriend nor boyfriend? a nonbinaryfriend?”) Every character’s race, ethnicity + sexuality was specified even when they were just background characters (“she was white or latina or both” “he was east asian and hot”????) Instead of feeling genuine + authentic, this seemed to serve as a diversity checklist rather than actually being meaningful. I appreciate the attempt to be all inclusive (as all authors should!!!) but I feel as though there were other options on how to go about this.⠀
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Overall, I did like how this book explored self-discovery and discussed how coming out/being gay looks different for everyone. I think a lot of people will relate to Lara’s journey + the confusion she struggles with.⠀
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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review⠀

I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of my highly anticipated reads for the year. The cover is amazing, and the synopsis seemed up my alley. I honestly did not expect to get the arc, but I was so excited when I did. However, this book did not entirely live up to my expectations.

Dahlia Adler’s Cool for the Summer follows a high school senior named Lara as she attempts to figure out her life and what she wants. After the summer, Lara’s long time crush, Chase Harding, has finally noticed her. She is over the moon about this at first, but Lara cannot stop thinking about how she spent the summer with Jasmine. When Jasmine unexpectedly switches to Lara’s school, the two must navigate their confusing relationship. Lara wants to be happy with her friends and the boy of her dreams, but she cannot forget Jasmine.

I want to start by saying that while this was not a perfect read for me, this book still has very important messages. I really liked Lara’s arc and character development. Her story was a good representation of what it is like to be confused while questioning and figuring out your sexuality. The self-discovery aspect was well done in my opinion. I also appreciated that this was balanced with lighthearted and funny moments.

I also really liked how the author incorporated a past and present timeline. I love when stories are not fully linear. It was really intriguing to see how much Lara has grown in the present timeline because of what happened in the past. It also help build the relationship between Jasmine and Lara.

I did find this book hard to get into because of the writing. It was just not my favorite and took me some time to adjust, but after the beginning, it started to pick up and flow better. It was harder for me to feel invested because most of the characters fell felt. I felt that only Lara was well developed and had a good character arc. While the past timeline shows more of what Jasmine is like, Chase’s character seemed under developed. He started liking Lara out of nowhere, and we did not really learn much about him. I was not a big fan of how the author portrayed Lara’s friendships either. It was almost as if they did not really like each other since most interactions felt passive aggressive.

One of my biggest problems with this book that I want to emphasize is that I found the character descriptions pretty weird. At times, it felt like race and ethnicity of different characters were thrown out in a superficial way. It seemed like the author was just trying to cover her bases and then just did not really mention it again. Representation, diversity, and inclusion are important, but again, it felt superficial in this book. There was a comment about a nonbinary character that felt off too. It seemed like the author was trying to make a joke, but it came across in a negative way.

While I did not necessarily love this book, I still think Cool for the Summer will resonate with a lot of readers. Adler crafts an important narrative about self-discovery and bisexuality. Stories like this can really help teens, and I do wish there were more books like this when I was growing up.

*Content warning: divorce, underage drinking, biphobia, sexual content*

Thank you to the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book before its release on May 11, 2021.

This beautiful little slice of saccharine pie courtesy of author Dahlia Adler came around at just the right time. Not only was I in desperate need of a pick-me-up, which is a lot lately, it also happened to be her birthday so, not one to fight the universe, I dug in.

And while I’ll admit that Cool for the Summer gives off that “Summer Nights” vibe, the comparison to Grease is both obvious and unnecessary. It placates perhaps a mass market with a comparable Greek mythological structure, but in my opinion, lacks that real world aesthetic that Cool for the Summer provides. One is an on the nose fantasy with a goddamn flying chariot; one is not.

And since we’re doing some prep-work, reading the lyrics to “Cool for the Summer” by Demi Lovato will give you a nice starting point, along with looking at pictures of Outer Banks, North Carolina, two things I did. And it behooves me to tell you it might be worth your time remembering that bit about Demi Lovato.

“…Cool for the Summer is a story of self-discovery and new love. 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.”

Like the summary says, Larissa (Lara) Bogdan spends the summer before her senior year away from her normal life. Away from her normal routine, her normal job, and her normal friends, instead going with her mother to the Outer Banks, or OBX as the locals call it. It’s here she meets the story’s temptress, the enigmatic Jasmine Killary, which is a rad name by the way.

“And then she looks right at me with the closest thing to golden eyes I’ve ever seen.”

For her part, Jasmine is a modern-day demigoddess, a welcome contemporary take on a few tired archetypes who by every measurable standard, has god-like taste in just about everything she CHOOSES. Amongst all her talents and physical attributes, it’s Jasmine’s rogue self-determinative style that Lara finds most attractive. And as they spend more time together, that magical and intangible bit of mystery called true love begins to blossom. This of course only adds to the confusion because Lara is straight…she thinks.

Interlude:

We’re now at the “buy-in” point of the book, because when I say, “true love”, I don’t mean the niceties we accessorize our daily lives with, I mean Princess Bride level true love.

So, if you subscribe to that premise, this blind faith will be your companion the rest of the way though the book, and you’ll be better for it. If you should choose to remain jaded (like I am most of the time), this book might not work for you, not in the way it should.

Back to the story…

So, as all things must do, the summer comes to an end, and with it, the end of Lara and Jasmine’s relationship. There were most definitely some things left unsaid, and Lara isn’t sure where things stand. But most importantly and mostly unbeknownst to her, a transference has occurred, resulting in a metamorphosis.

Jasmine (and OBX) was the catalyst Lara didn’t know she needed, and maybe not to change the course of her life, but definitely make it better. And when her new-self collides with her old-self back in the real world (New York), people take notice, and the laws of attraction go into effect. Lara gets everything she thought she always wanted, including “the guy”. But the already complicated trials and tribulations of high school become more so when a new transfer student shows up to spoil the party, Jasmine.

And as we progress through Lara and her friend’s senior year, she must not only try and keep her summer tryst from them but make sense of this emotion she can’t shake no matter how hard she tries, Jasmine.

At the beginning, when the summer was still fresh in Lara’s mind, it was easy to remember all the little details about Jasmie, her time in OBX. The details that damn Shannon could never know or at least understand! Sorry. And as most of us know, time may kill the pain, but it doesn’t help you forget.

This is where Dahlia breaks up the story in a very natural way with some time jumping, taking us back to the summer periodically when a specific memory is triggered for Lara. This whirlwind of a senior year mixed with a bit of confused bitterness towards Jasmine didn’t cause the amnesia she was maybe hoping for. So, as certain memories come flooding back, it’s almost too much to take, and Lara is on the cusp of ruining everything she thought she wanted.

“I’ve never seen someone find so much beauty in everything.”

These are the book’s finest moments, as we are immersed in what will probably be the greatest summer of Lara’s life, of either of their lives. Heck, it’s probably the greatest summer of my life. And don’t look for epic, this isn’t that. Instead look for a series of small but meaningful gestures of kindness, reassurances from a loving hand on our skin, of soft-spoken secrets, and offers of comfort.

It’s not public proclamations of status and love or being the consort to the reigning king of the school, all which come with perks of course, but those are just wish fulfillment. Because all they did was make her relationship with Chase Harding a spectator sport, and that includes those most private and intimate of moments.

You see, in the classic literary sense, Lara’s life was a tragedy. One that was lost in routine and constancy, one that was drowning in expectation and convention, she just didn’t know it. These of course aren’t the worse things that can happen to a person, but we hopefully know enough now to understand that cages take many forms. And while for some that’s a life worth living, if I may borrow a line from Dahlia, a good story doesn’t mean it’s the right story. And it’s not for Lara, not anymore. Because she’s felt something nearly indescribable, something that can’t necessarily be explained away or fixed with a tiara, something that feels like freedom.

“You’re gonna do amazing things, Tinkerbell.”

This is why Jasmine is the hero of Lara’s story, she literally saves her from a life of arm candy and triviality. She accomplishes this by showing her the beauty in all things, by offering subtle words of encouragement, and by being brave. Brave enough to show up to a Clementine Walker event with a broken heart, brave enough to make a fool of herself in front of the whole school, and brave enough to be honest in a society that doesn’t always welcome honesty.

And sure, this book has grand gestures, moments of teenage crisis and cis-het euphoria, ones that would make John Hughes jealous. But Jasmine isn’t built that way, she’s not Chase Harding, who for all intents and purposes has been blessed with the body of Apollo and the soul of a Labrador Retriever. And I should take a moment here to point out, Chase seems like an okay dude, he’s at least no villain. No, the villains were those guys on the outside of the bedroom door, you’ll understand when you read it.

No, Jasmine is Aglaea and Orpheus rolled into one, embracing both the beauty and grace of Algaea, and the courage and stick-to-itiveness of Orpheus. Don’t believe me? You will when you get to the party/karaoke scene.

Now, I’m not saying Jasmine used her singing ability to try and win back Lara from Chase in front of the entire student body at a teenagers’ most important social event, a hot and sweaty house party where you can make or break your high school career…but…Orpheus used his incredible music ability to charm the boatman Charon into giving him a ferry ride across the river Styx so he could enter Hades and bring the love of his life, Eurydice, back from the dead.

And speaking of karaoke and the power of song, specifically words, sometimes words do absolutely fucking matter. And sometimes the ostensibly simple act of changing one word in a lyric can change the world. Just ask Demi Lovato, and just ask Lara.

I suspect Cool for the Summer will land with either a thud or with the roar of a high-school football game. You will either recognize Dahlia’s beats and rhythms as just another YA romance book, or if you’re like me, feel the magic that is sometimes better expressed with a bad rendition of a pop song than breaking a high-school football record.

As for the language and pace of the book, both were perfectly fine for me. Like I said, the time jumps were the most enjoyable aspects of the book, so they didn’t bother me whatsoever. Aside from themes, I wouldn’t hold Cool for the Summer up to any type of particular standard or scrutiny, so I’m not sure why anyone else would either. It’s a contemporary YA romance book, and Dahlia is a good writer, period.

And the way high-school kids talk to each other about their bodies, what they wear, and orientation in general isn’t a language that’s neither perfected nor even entirely understood by most people. So, how certain people are referred to and the discussion surrounding labels, seemed perfectly in line with a lot of the conversation happening today.

Either way, with the world falling apart, it's nice to know true believers still exist and that all Greek tragedy love stories don’t end in death.

Thank you, Dahlia.

ARC provided by Netgalley.

I was really excited to read this book and I was so happy when my request got approved but I think my expectations were probably too high.
I really have mixed feelings towards this book, there are great things about it and things I didn't really enjoy
We got two time lines in the story, the past (Lara's summer) and the present (when she's in high school) ; I really appreciate it, it brings a lovely dynamic to the story and also I loved all the flashbacks.
I wasnt a big fan of the love triangle especially because I didn't like Chase.
There is a good lgbt representation in the book but I wish we could have see more of Lara questioning her sexuality to make it complete.
Overall, it's wasn't a bad story but I wish I had more. The ending was something I liked a lot it made me really happy.

What a fun read this was! Larissa goes away for the summer and meets a girl, and they end up having more fun than Larissa expected. She had never kissed a girl before. Larissa is surprised at her strong feelings for Jasmine but it’s time for back to school. Then her crush of six years,Chase, has now noticed her and they begin dating. Larissa is torn because surprise Jasmine is now going to her school! Larissa is torn. Who does she really care for and want the most?

There's a lot to love about this book, and with so much in the plus column, there of course has to be room for the multiple little hiccups that take away (slightly!) from full enjoyment of and immersion in this book. We're hooked at the start with the gripping attraction and 'stupid hot' crush. Author does a great job of speaking in authentic teen tone and has done great work in giving us excellent voice. I wasn't distracted by voice and found that author's attention to great dialogue and inner voice really created a cloud of realism here. Excellent work. I didn't latch onto the rational for Chase's attraction to Lara. It just seemed like they needed more interaction, or some reason why a crush would burst out full-force. A bi romance is done well and breathes in this book even though author (or perhaps editors?) seems to push the nationality topic hard to make points. Calling a character a 'non-binary friend' didn't fit smoothly, and it felt like this book was checking items off a list at times. But it's still a great read, and even those little distractions are easily forgiven. This is a good one.

3/5⭐️ 𝘢𝘳𝘤 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺
Video coming soon to my TikTok @zitaknowshowtoread
(I'm trying out a new way of structuring my reviews)

STORY?: Cool for the Summer follows Lara, who returns to school after a near-perfect summer spent in a whirlwind romance with a girl she met on vacation. But nothing is ever easy is it? Of course not! upon returning to school Laras longtime crush Chase starts flirting with her. Lara must choose between her longtime crush who might finally be hers or the girl she can't stop thinking about.

CHARACTERS: Our protagonist Lara wasn't my favourite character of all time. She was snarky and fun at times but I truly wasn't a fan of her narration (which I will get into more under WRITING). As for her love interests, Chase Lara's longtime crush felt a little one-dimensional to me especially compared to the other corner of the love triangle Jasmine. Where Jasmine had interests that aligned with Lara's, the only thing I can say about Chase was that he was nice. Just nice (and attractive). They had some chemistry but it was a little boring and made Lara's indecision surrounding her two love interests a little less believable. Lara's group of school friends were okay if a little forgettable as were her friends from her summer vacation, who were given all of three pages in the book before I promptly forgot about them.

ROMANCE: As I said above, the romance between Lara and Chase was a little lacklustre. He was nice (I cannot think of any other ways to describe him, I'm sorry). The only things that Lara seemed to like about him were his looks (and his arms). Lara and Jasmine's romance was fun and cute and honestly a joy to read. The book was pretty sex-positive without being too smutty which was a win for me (if you have seen my TikToks you may understand my frustration with authors YA books too sexual for teenagers). And the bisexual MC discovering her sexuality felt pretty true to life for me (as a queer teenager myself).

WRITING: This book was told in the first person and through two different timelines "now" being Lara's time at school and "then" telling the story of what happened between her and Jasmine over the summer. I can't say that I'm a fan of time jumps in books but this one executed it pretty well changing it frequently enough that it didn't get too boring but not so much that I didn't get invested.

PERSONAL COMMENTS: holy SHIT was I happy to read a book with a bisexual mc!!!!! There is a sad amount of queer rom-com like books and this absolutely fit the bill. And the diversity was great in this book featuring a bunch of characters of colour and even (briefly) featuring a non-binary character!

PROBLEMS I HAD WITH THIS BOOK: none that I haven't covered above.

I flew through Cool for the Summer! I adored the characters and enjoyed going along the journey of them trying to understand their sexuality. The diversity and way the characters were written was absolutely beautiful

Lara has always had a crush on popular football player, Chase Harding, and it seems like this year, she finally has a chance with him. While it normally would have been a dream come true, Lara is still thinking about the girl she spent her summer with, Jasmine. Then, Jasmine shows up at her school.

Jasmine and Lara pretend like they don't know each other, but even as Lara and Chase start getting more serious, Lara can' get Jasmine out of her mind.

Overall, I really liked this. It felt very authentic and all the characters seemed so realistic. I love that this is a non-angsty wlw since so many wlw books are super depressing. This was a fun read and has the prettiest cover.

**Review to be posted on Goodreads and blog closer to publication date.

I have so many positive things to say about COOL FOR THE SUMMER! The characters are realistic and relatable. The plot was very well written. I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I raced through it. I highly recommend this title. A nice cool, breezing story. Everyone will love it!

This book was an okay, albeit a little dull. The main character is sort of vapid and hard to root for. She's a good person, just boring. It nice to read a book about not straight people though. I would recommend this book to teens, but not to older audiences.

Very quick and cute read!
I don’t think I’ve ever read a romance where the main character is bisexual.
I loved the exploration of sexuality.
It seemed thoughtful and sweet.
I think love triangles are tricky to pull off, but I found this book did it pretty well. I think the ending was fairly obvious, but it’s a short book, so I wasn’t bothered.
I read a review before reading it and that it had some not great comments about ethnicity and a non binary character. I was glad to have the warning, and I will second that comment. It seemed rather flippant, but regardless, comments like that are never okay.
So while I think it is great we are getting bisexual representation in novels, I think that all representation matters and all of it should be paid attention to.
Overall, an enjoyable read, but be aware of some comments.

So good! The sapphic version of Grease I've been dying for ever since reading Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales! This book was YA, but also was about seniors (17-18 yr olds) making it a bit more mature for people who enjoy books more so on the older end of the YA spectrum. Again, so good! Definitely recommend 4/5 stars.

This is my favorite book that I have read this year.; I fell in love with it; its plot and its characters. Lara and Jasmine were one of the best couples ever; their chemistry and love for each other had me on the edge of my seat the entire read.
It was frustrating to see how long it took them to get where they needed to be. but Adler makes the situations that led them there, necessary. Lara needed to accept she has other layers to herself and Jasmine needed to express her feelings.
(I only have one more thing to say: I am in desperate need of a girlfriend *proceeds to listen 'we fell in love in october by girl in red*)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I really loved this heartfelt book, featuring a bisexual love triangle and the coming of age story I would have devoured as a teen. I hadn't anticipated getting as emotional as I did throughout the story and I loved that journey. Unfortunately, there were a few parts of the book that sat with me the wrong way.

There were a few comments about race and ethnicity that didn't feel true to a teen experience and felt like they were just there for diversity - no fleshing out of those characters/experiences. There was another comment about a "nonbinary friend that felt off, even if it wasn't intended to come off that way.

I did love Lara's character arc and how she was able to explore her sexuality in high school. Her internal struggle was relatable and watching that exploration of validity/bisexuality on page was both affirming and heartwarming. I'm grateful that this book exists for anyone going through something similar.

3/5

This Grease inspired contemporary with a bisexual main character was certainly something. Summer love is fickle, and for high school senior Lara it arrives when she least expects it: while on summer holiday in Outer Banks, North Carolina. Swept away from her friends in New York and everything she knows, Lara spends the summer with Jasmine, the daughter of her mother's supervisor. What starts out as an unlikely friendship quickly blossoms into something incredible, but when they part ways at the end of the summer, neither expects to see the other again for some time. Of course, that's just where the story begins.

Cool for the Summer is exactly the kind of book I wish I'd had access to growing up. This story explores friendship, love, and sexuality in tandem with one another, and I can already tell it's going to break waves with young readers. The actual story follows two timelines, then and now, then being the summer, and now being the present day. Both timelines are dispersed equally in the progression of the story, which allow for the revelation of relationship development to be split equally between Lara and Jasmine, and Lara and Chase. As many of you know, I absolutely abhor love triangles with every fiber of my being, but for the sake of this book, it gets a pass. Mainly because the development of the plot indicated that the couple I wanted to get together was headed for endgame. There really was not a lot of explanation for Chase's sudden interest in Lara, which is just one reason I didn't really root for them as a couple. I think I needed more groundwork to be laid there in order for me to care, but I'm beginning to think the absence of it was intentional on the authors part. Showing the flaws in the relationship, while building up the background for the other couple. Brilliant. One thing about this that did surprise me was the balance between the lighthearted and more serious moments. I didn't really expect it, but the addition of serious topics into the story was critical and handled perfectly by the author.

I do want to make reference to a few things within the book that didn't sit well with me. One was the way certain characters were described when it came to their race and ethnicity, which seemed to serve as a diversity checklist more than anything else, and another was a statement about a nonbinary character, which seemed to have such a negative connotation associated with reading it. As most of these comments hinged around characters that were far in the background, I really question how and why they were said. Partly because we never saw or heard from these characters again, and because the negative comment was tacked on to a background character like it wanted to go unnoticed. These comments completely rubbed me the wrong way when I read them, and did impact my overall enjoyment of the book.

I do think the exploration of identity tied in with a journey towards learning more about oneself completely stole the show here. Add to the fact that this was inspired by Grease, and I just know it is going to come to mean something to a lot of people. Also, who else didn't know that cool for the summer was a wlw song. Just me?

Trigger warnings: biphobia, alcohol consumption (underage), parental divorce

Lara has spent the majority of her grade school years with a not-so-secret crush on the star football player, Chase Harding. However, a summer at the Outer Banks with her mom, her mom's boss, and his daughter makes her question everything she thought she knew about herself. Back at school after a dreamy summer, Lara hopes that Chase's newfound interest in her will blossom into something more only to be confronted by the very girl she is trying to forget. This story of new love and self-discovery won't disappoint.

My favorite thing about this book is that everything about it feels real. The main character struggles with real issues and handles them in a very real way. Dahlia Adler's supporting characters are just as full of life as her main characters and add such a level of depth to the narrative. I could feel the warmth of friendship and family love with every page I turned.