Member Reviews
Sweet coming of age story. Twelve year old Joey parents are having problems so he is sent to the town of Greenberry for the summer. There he will stay with the Vitale family and their three teenage girls.
Coming of age story that follows Joey when he spend the summer in a small town with his parent's friends and their three daughters.
I keep reading just waiting for something to happen that makes the story interesting, but it didn't. Everybody is happy and nice and pretty. It felt very flat through out the book even if the writing is entertaining for most of the book.
I can't give a review since I don't have the book so i haven't read it. It was archived prior to download. I'm sorry.
A coming of age drama…. There's something about the way the author writes that makes the words flow easily, and the pages turn themselves!
Thanks to Netgalley and Books Go Social for this ARc. This was a quick coming of age read set in the views of Joey. I honestly did not connect to
Joey or the other characters very well but did enjoy the story. I will try more novels by this author but this was not a favorite of mine.
I found nothing about this book enjoyable-bad writing, a flat storyline and completely one-dimensional characters. Not for me.
I usually read multiple books simultaneously. I, therefore, finish them in batches. I don't end up reviewing them, just queuing them and getting to them at a later stage. Sometimes, based on my mood at the time of writing the review, I tend to like the process, and at other times not. In this instance, when I saw it was this book that I had pending, I felt a slight smile thinking of my reading of this. This reaction is not common for authors I have no prior experience with and even rarer for books with such an offbeat narrative.
I would refrain from calling this book quaint, but it veers quite close to how I would define a book in relation to that word. When the book begins, we have a man introducing his wife to a popular stage artist and mentioning how they knew each other as children. When they cross paths after the show, the latter remembers him and acknowledges him quite emotionally. The story then pans back to the summer, which forms the foundation of the entire narrative.
This was a refreshing book in all senses of the word. The narrator is Joey, as a young boy sent to live with friends as his parents sort out their differences. The tone I liked best in this was this preteen boy being friends with these girls, describing their beauty and energy without actually being creepy. He genuinely treats these girls as his sisters without any blood ties. It is very rare that I come across a book that is not childlike and refrains from complicating relationships between people of different genders at the forefront of the narrative.
The summer is set to bring changes to the lives of everyone present. We get to see some of the events from the eyes of the girls as well when Joey is not deemed old enough to be part of the conversation.
It is the summer of dreams being formed and personalities being shaped. Set in the 1970s, it felt quite realistic, and the people in town provided a very full cast of differing types of people making the story feel unique but also nostalgic. The slower pace of life described here made it easy for me to see the situation even as I have no way of actually knowing exactly what the experience would have been like, given the differences in the cultures that I am accustomed to.
This would work well as a young adult book, something I seldom think when reading an actual young-adult labelled book! I highly recommend this as a historical fiction coming-of-age story.
I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.
Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read this book for my review.
I really enjoyed reading this book as the main message it delivers to its readers is to "Believe in Dreaming Big". The narrative is well-paced, lucrative and lucid with a country-side background with great character developments. Reading was super fun as it inspires one to be a dreamer and a doer.
This was a sweet book about small town life. I like the author's style and the characters. Normally this is my kind of book, but I got 1/3 read, and still found no sense of it going anywhere. I need some kind of plot line to keep my interest. Granted, it might have picked up eventually. Others might find it a better story, but I probably won't finish it. Though I will try this author again, but this one just didn't appeal to me. Thank you Netgally for the chance to try the ARC.
And So We Dream is a coming-of-age story about a kid named Joey who is spending the summer with extended family in a small town. He is really enamored with the three sisters and spends a lot of time thinking about how beautiful they are. I found the story a nice relaxing read about easier times but it was also a very slow read for me. The story is very well-written and the characters and setting are perfect for the time.
MidWest Coming of Age Story
This was such a neat book to read. It started a bit slowly and then it really took off. The story of young teenagers finding their dreams and discovering themselves. It starts in a prologue that begins in the future and looks back to a special summer. After reading the novel, I re-read the Prologue. Now I want a complete book on their lives and what happened during those twenty missing years. I am going to read more from this author and hope that they are as good as this one. I received this Advanced Review Copy for free from Net Galley, but this is my honest review.
A nice little story that I liked ok.
I think my two favorite things were the cover of the book and the small town feel that made me feel right at home. I'm from a small town myself. It's a wonderful feeling in many ways and others not.
Coming of age stories are always interesting to read and in all honesty that's why I chose this book. It's like I'm reading about myself sometimes.. especially if its from the characters point of view.
I did feel that in some places the story slowed down some.
Here's a quote that is true
"I guess it's hard to know." " Or maybe I'm just a small town girl with a dream too big." Mediocire in everything."
You know, I feel just like Vita does when something like that gets in my way. But after I get over it I look at it this way, when God closes a door He always opens another one that's better. Yes there will always be disappointments and hurts but that's life.
Another thing that I liked about this book was the friendship that these characters had for one another and remained close even after they grew up. Wished I had that.
Vita had big dreams. Almost like me. But unfortunately for me they went by the wayside because of people or things getting in my way.
Joey is a cool character. I liked him because of his positive attitude and encouragement towards Vita.
5 stars for a job well done with this book and new to me author. Her writing is exquisite.
I recommend this book if you want to read something new. Its awesome.
My thanks for a copy of this book. I was NOT required to write a positive review of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
Taking place in a small American town, And So We Dream is a charming coming-of-age narrative.
I found their sweetly illustrated characters and little town settings to be quite relatable. We had the world at our toes, just like Joey and the three sisters did in this narrative, and the adventures appeared to go on forever. The writing brought me right back there and made me feel everything.
Characters are well-developed, and the plot of the narrative fills me with an unfathomable thrill. I believe that everyone reads this will be able to be enchanted by the story, regardless of their past encounters with childhood.
It's a lovely, sweet tale that made me feel good. It's a good book to read while unwinding.