Review: When Summer Ends by Isabelle Rae

Date Read: November 6 - 7 2012
Release Date: September 27th 2012
Publisher: Self-published
Source: Bought
Genre: Contemporary
My rating: 
Synopsis:
"Chloe Henderson has never been one to break the rules or push the boundaries… but during her summer break, she and her friends use fake IDs to sneak into a club. It’s there that she meets handsome and alluring bartender, Will Morris. The pair hit it off immediately, growing closer with every passing day. But as with every summer, it has to end sometime.

Chloe’s senior year approaches and there’s a shock in store when she returns to do her final year at school. Will is there too, but he’s not one of her fellow students…

A tale of forbidden love, broken hearts, friendship, and rivalry."

---

Ah this was so sweet and worth trading in some exam study time!
I absolutely LOVE Will, he's so sweet, romantic, considerate, passionate and just plain amazing. I wish I had a guy like Will! I absolutely love how he calls Chloe 'Cutie'.

What I didn't like:
The writing itself I felt was a bit unsophisticated at times - I felt phrases could have been written better with sentence structures more mature sounding. I mean I know it's written in the POV of a teenage girl but it literally felt like I was reading some 17 year-old's diary/blog recounting events sometimes. Also, I felt that a lot of the things were repeated unnecessarily (A LOT) and some things were written with no purpose of being there e.g. "I blushed and did a little curtsy before walking off quickly towards where my parents were waiting and talking to Trevor, Nick’s dad." The part about her walking back to her parents was enough (she was talking to Will), I didn't see the point of saying that they were talking to Nick's dad when Rae had stated earlier Amy's parents and Nick's parents were all talking. There was also a SHITLOAD of grammatical and spelling errors throughout that really really pissed me off. You can confuse "your" and "you're" maybe ONCE as maybe you weren't thinking as you were writing but even self-published, doing that like 5 times or more should really get picked up. There were so many spelling mistakes I wondered if this had been edited at all - I write essays with less errors in a given ratio.
I just thought there could have been so much more potential for it to be 5 stars.

What made this awesome:
All those negatives aside, this actually was an amazing read.
Chloe's character annoyed me sometimes but I really felt her pain. Sometimes I feel like a masochist because I love reading these things and feeling so many emotions: happiness, then SO much heartache and sadness. Chloe's pain was so tremendous I had my hand over my mouth half the time I was reading to cover my sobs and my wrenching heart was protesting that I couldn't take anymore. The torment Will and Chloe went through made this so worth it. I loved the way the emotions were conveyed (albeit a little repetitive at times) but when he finally confessed his love for her, oh my gosh it was like everything just fell into place because they're so perfect together.
I loved the way Will is seen through Chloe's eyes - especially at school when he couldn't have her but you could see how much he wanted her, and how much that wanting came out as anger and frustration on Chloe making her hurt even more! The tension was certainly palpable at times when they were alone at school... or even in their calculus class because it seemed like the world fell away around them.
I also loved the humour here. Chloe and Will's witty, flirtatious banter had me laughing so much all the time, and their activities were so entertaining (the tubing and snowball fight!). I also loved the Erika part, it added just the right touch of mischievousness and humour to balance a really daunting situation.
The supporting characters were amazing too - I especially loved Nick, Sam and Amy. Nick for his undying support of Chloe even when he still loved her, Sam for his brashness and willingness to support his brother and Amy for her loyalty as a friend. Some of the qualities might have seemed a little stereotypical at times but once I thought about it, it made sense given how long each character has known the other for.

I've heard this isn't as great as Slammed (can't wait to read that) but dang I thought this was a beautiful story!

View all my reviews