This book opened beautifully and continued in such a way as well. The atmosphere that was created was brilliant, I truly loved diving into the era of World War Two, especially as it has been seen though the eyes of a sixteen year old.

The characters really kept me going, I loved them and wanted to know how their journey was going to progress to the very end. The only reason I knocked off a star was because the pace dropped occasionally for me, especially just after the opening. However, I would recommend this book to family and friends. A great piece of YA historical fiction.

I love historical fiction and im always done for a story set in WWII because its a really important event in our history, things that happend are important to be rememberd so that they won't happen again. I knew it would be really hard for me not to like it and the different perspectives made it that more interesting. I have read a few books that were simular to this one, but this story turnt out to be different than i thought.

This book is told from three perspectives: Peggy, a teenage girl living in England during the war; Ernest, her rule-following brother; and Henryk, the pilot who crashes not too far from their house. Out of the three main characters i liked Henryk to most, he was different and i liked reading about his past and his prived thoughts. As for Peggy and Ernest, i liked Peggy.. but Ernest got on my nerves.. mayby because he is that typical young boy who jumps to conclusions to quick. Peggy reminded me of the girl in the Dutch book that i read before 'Oorlogs Winter' . She was caring and brave, te romance between to two was also so soothing and nice to see blossem. It wasn't like insta love you see nowadays in every book you read in YA.

The reason i liked Henryk so much is because he has great character build, you see him change throught to story. At the beginning of the story he is really afraid of flying again and having to go back to the airforce base, but throughout the story you she he gets is strenght back. As for the other characters, there wasn't much to them.. Ernest really got on my nerves and i wanted to shake him silly and some points. He jumpt from the one conclusion to the other in a heartbeat which didný make sence at all.

The plot was okey... There's the set-up, which is Henryk crashing and Peggy finding him. Then, there's just a lot about their lives without ever really having the feeling of moving towards something. And because of that, the ending feels really rushed - things actually start to happen when you got to the and of the book. I had to reread quite a few parts just to have any idea of what was happening. I don't mind reading a book with a minimal plot, but when the end is so rushed you feel like the story isn't executed right. Also the Epilogue felly weird sometimes.. i didn't really know what had happend to the characters. But overall the story was more a story set in WWII instead that it was the main theme, it was still a good and entertaining read.

I know that things can be changed for the purposes of fiction and that I shouldn't treat this as a history book, but since I knew so little about Poland in that time, it gave me a good general understanding of how things were. After reading this, I'll definitely be looking out for other books with similar settings.

I liked this book, it just didn't really impress me.. But thats okey.

I was really looking forward to reading this book. The cover is beautiful, and the blurb made it sound like a great read. I couldn't wait to get started.

I was quite taken back by how the book opened. I wasn't too sure what Ms Syson was trying to do initially, but it seemed as if I had stumbled onto some poorly written poetry that didn't make any sense. The prose were too lyrical, too short, and to sweetly sticky for my liking. It was difficult to read, let alone engage with.

But...it takes a great deal for me to give up on a book so I persevered, and in this instance, I am so glad I did.

As the book progressed, the writing became less flamboyant and began to have an easy to read flow to it. Ms Syson settles down to a very nice writing style, and the book blossomed.

The story itself is beautiful, and it is set in a very realistic backdrop of WW2. It is very clear that Ms Syson has done her homework and researched the era in great depth, for she brought it back to life. I got completely lost in this book and time flew by because I was so absorbed in the story.

Ms Syson deals with a few controversial subjects in this book, which I thought she handled with a very delicate hand. From a child's anxiety to what we call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but what they would have called Shell Shock — which of course wasn't understood so well back then. She also deals with the contentious issue of those who would not bear arms against another, and she highlighted just how dreadful it was if you dared to refuse to go to war and fight. We often forget how barbaric the pacifists and their families were treated by the authorities and by their neighbours.

There are three protagonists in this book, and I liked the changing Points of Views. We have young Earnest, who is terrified he is going to stumble upon a spy. There is sixteen-year-old Peggy, who is convinced life is going to pass her by because of the war. Lastly, there is Henryk, a young Polish pilot who has lost his nerve to get back into an aeroplane. This story is about them, and it is sublime.

Despite the wobbly beginning, this book is really rather good. That Burning Summer is a very cleverly crafted piece of Young Adult Historical Fiction. It is worth checking out!
I Highly Recommend.

It is still early in the war. Peggy, her brother and their mum live with an uncle and aunt because they could not stay in their home town. First it seems that it is because their town seems to be unsafe due to the bombs but slowly I got the feeling there might be more. Though it never really becomes clear what is exactly going on. It is clear they need to find their way working on the farm.
I liked Henryk his story. I was hoping on more information about his escape to England though I did understand the choice to keep the story small as it was.Peggy did not impress me much as a characters. I did like Ernest. He seemed to be a very adventurous boy but was easily scared.
There are a few interesting topics discussed in the book. How foreign fighters came to fly for the RAF. How soldiers would get tired of the war and loose motivation.

I really enjoy reading stories about the people who lived through WWII. Perhaps it was sparked as a child when I first had to read Number the Stars. Perhaps it was sparked from the photos you see of women seeing their men off to war and the photos of victory when the war finally ended. Regardless of the reason, I really enjoy learning about the time period and people's stories of what life was like. So I was extremely excited about reading this book. Most of what I've read for this time period focused on Jewish people and those intimately connected with them. This is much different and I was looking forward to getting a glimpse into a different set of people in the same conflict.

Obviously, I like the setting of this book and the background of it. I think the characters' backgrounds bring quite a bit to it and I like that it envelops some more obscure people and topics that aren't focused on traditionally for the time period. You get to read about not only characters living in England during the time, but of the consequences of refusing to fight and being deemed a cowardly pacifist, of the role of Polish airmen assisting in the fight against Hitler and joining forces with the British, of what it was like living in the country outside of London rather than the destruction that was wrecked upon the city. I enjoyed learning about these topics and liked the way they were brought in throughout the story.

The characters were okay. I didn't particularly like any of them to be honest but they weren't unpleasant to read about by any means. Ernest got on my nerves throughout the book and I felt all of the characters except Henryk were pretty underdeveloped. I also had a hard time connecting with the characters but that could perhaps be chalked up to the book being in third person rather than first.

The writing style was difficult to get on with for me. I found it difficult to read at times because only phrases would be used rather than a sentence so the reader is left to try to follow an awkward train of thought without it truly being a train of thought as it's told from third person. I also didn't care for the alternating points of view each chapter. I normally don't mind too much switching characters' perspectives but I would become frustrated when something exciting was finally about to happen only to be taken away to another boring plotline.

And that brings me to my final point: I found it to be boring. The beginning was exciting but it went downhill for me after that. There were definitely parts of it that I liked but overall the book felt like it was going nowhere for the majority of it. The ending was a bit more exciting but I was left feeling a bit confused and dissatisfied by the characters' endings being left open. Overall, I feel that there are more interesting books dealing with this time period and I would not read this again.

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

I really wanted to like this novel after reading a few good reviews of it online, but I'm sad to say that ultimately it just wasn't for me. Syson is a creative and skilful writer - that's beyond doubt, but there was just something about these characters, living their ww2 lives that left me a little...cold. I found the exploits of Peggy and Ernest a little unoriginal and found it increasingly difficult to care about their choices and experiences in a way that I'd hoped. A well-written novel with an interesting setting that I really wanted to like that sadly just wasn't for me. Henryk was a bright spot in an otherwise disappointing read.

I typically love historical fiction especially with a romance written in, but this book did not cut it for me. It was difficult to read and as a result, I could not power through. I usually never do not finish a book, but this one I did not.

I REALLY enjoyed this book. I loved the history aspect of it (WWII is one of my favorite moments in history). The three main characters, and the ways they interact with each other, are fantastic. The big reveal, and how it affects Ernest was really great. I was definitely rooting for all of them. My one complaint was that I didn't quite understand or feel much for some of the secondary characters (the mother, the aunt, etc.). I would have liked to have gotten to know them a little more. But all and all, a great book with very lovely prose!

I love historical fiction, especially books set during World War II, so when I saw this on NetGalley, I had to request it. I knew it would be really hard for me not to like it! And the perspective made it that much more intriguing - I know I've never read about a Polish pilot before.

This book is told from three perspectives: Peggy, a teenage girl living in England during the war; Ernest, her rule-following brother; and Henryk, the pilot who crashes not too far from their house. Out of the three, Henryk was by far my favorite. He was the most interesting to read about, both in the main story and as his past was revealed. I didn't really have any strong feelings one way or the other about Peggy, Ernest, or, for that matter, any of the other characters.

I think one of the reasons I liked Henryk the most is that besides his backstory, there isn't really much of a plot until the very end. There's the set-up, which is Henryk crashing and Peggy finding him. Then, there's just a lot about their lives without ever really having the feeling of moving towards something. And because of that, the ending feels really rushed - things actually start to happen, but it's too much and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I had to reread quite a few parts just to have any idea of what was happening. I don't mind books with slow/minimal plots if the characters are interesting, but as I said before, they really weren't.

Henryk's backstory was interesting, but it also taught me a lot about what was going on in Poland at the time. I know that things can be changed for the purposes of fiction and that I shouldn't treat this as a history book, but since I knew so little about that place and that time, it gave me a good general understanding of how things were. After reading this, I'll definitely be looking out for other books with similar settings.

I feel like this review sounds overly negative. I liked this book, it just didn't impress me. And I think that, especially in a spoiler-free review, it's a lot easier to talk about what didn't work for me rather than what did.

http://foreveryoungadult.com/2017/01/17/that-burning-summer/

Going into this I was really excited because I love historical fiction especially when it is based around WW2 but I wasn't expecting a Christian romance not that it is a bad thing just surprised. I felt a little uncomfortable in some of the romantic scenes and I felt the end was really rushed.

I always enjoy reading historical fiction, especially if the story is set during or around WWII, so that explains why I found That Burning Summer by Lydia Syson an easy choice. I was really looking forward to another WWII story, but unfortunately I wasn’t too convinced by this one. I’m not saying it was a bad read, but it took me a long time to get a proper feel for the story and I struggled to focus on the plot. I cannot put my finger exactly on the why though… It might have been the tone, it might have been the pace, but it just wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. The premise of That Burning Summer is interesting even though I’ve read about characters hiding soldiers in the past. The Polish airman Henryk has an interesting background, but I felt the focus of this story was too much on the ‘childish’ romantic feelings between him and Peggy instead of what is happening in the war. That angle would have been much more interesting, especially since as far as I could tell the descriptions of the war are very accurate and seem well researched. Instead, both the childish feelings of Peggy for the soldier and her annoying little brother distracted from what could have been such an intriguing story. Most people seem to enjoy That Burning Summer though, so it might just have been me…

It’s fair to say that Salt to the Sea and Code Name Verity have ruined me for most young adult fiction. I used to make allowances for less intricate story lines and less emotive characters, but Ruta Sepetys and Elizabeth Wein proved that fiction marketed to adolescents can be just as compelling and addictive as that written for the adult market. The efforts of both authors have raised my expectations of the genre which likely explains my lack of enthusiasm for Lydia Syson’s That Burning Summer.
To be fair, I think the novel has a lot going for historically and feel it a creative means of teaching readers about the Battle of Britain and the war time experiences of those on homefront during WWII. I particularly enjoyed those passages that touched on the peace protests and conscious objector movement and felt Syson’s incorporation of these concepts brought a nice degree of context to the larger conflict. I also appreciated Henryk, not as an individual character, but as a representation of Polish pilots and their contribution to the war effort.
That said, I felt the novel lacked momentum and I often found myself bored with the style and tone of the telling. I’m not a writer and can’t put my finger on the exact issue, but something in the mechanics of the narrative didn’t mesh the way I needed it to. Much as I liked Syson’s ideas, I couldn’t get into her writing and ultimately didn’t care a whit for the characters or how their stories played out.

3.5 stars for me! As a teacher, I can easily see my high school students connecting with Ernest and Peggy. Having the issues of pacifism, heroism, and war, examined through the perspective of adolescents is definitely a winner in historical fiction. Bringing the little known story of Polish men that fought in the RAF to our present day attention made the story even more fascinating.
Although I felt the story to be a little too rushed in the end and perhaps a little to perfect in the epilogue, I felt the majority of the story was fast paced and held my attention all the way to the end. One of the must reads of 2017!