Summer State Of Mind By Jen Calonita

I received this galley in consideration for an honest review.

Summer State Of Mind By Jen CalonitaSummer State of Mind by Jen Calonita
Series: Whispering Pines #2
Published by Hachette on April 22, 2014
Genres: Young Adult
Goodreads
three-half-stars

Summer has finally arrived and fifteen-year-old Harper McCallister intends to spend her days at the mall shopping or by the pool at her country club. But after receiving her latest heart-stopping credit card bill, Harper’s parents makes other plans, and ship her off to camp. Suddenly, the clueless yet ever-popular Harper is the new girl at the bottom of a social ladder she can’t climb in wedge sandals and expensive clothes. She seems to be winning over super-cute camp “Lifer” Ethan, though, and if she can manage to make a few friends–and stay out of trouble–she just might find a whole new summer state of mind.

 

Summer State of Mind was an excellent addition to my summer reading pile.  Harper was raised mostly as a middle class kid, but due to a series of fortunate events, they are now living a life of luxury.  Harper has everything she could ever hope for, including all the best clothes and the most popular friends.  Her high flying life is well established with a few critical scenes where we see her fighting her conscience, but unable or unwilling to speak up when she sees her friends behaving in ways that make her cringe.  One insane credit card bill later and she’s in camp, the quintessential fish out of water.  Even though the rich girl goes to camp has been done, I still had so much fun with this story. Harper realizes that friendship cant be bought with scented candles, and I really loved the way her character grew while still staying true to who she was at her core.  Throw in a few really funny pranks and mishaps, and it was a book that I ended up really liking.

This is a great book for the younger YA reading group and I would feel totally comfortable giving this book to the hard-to-please tween set.  Although it does skew young, I loved the story.  It really hits on the universal theme of finding out who you are and remembering that having material things doesn’t mean you have everything you need in life.  I have already recommended this book to several teens and tweens in my life, and I highly recommend it to you, as well.  It was fun, sweet, and hilarious.  It made me nostalgic for a time when I had my summers free and when going to camp meant seeing the friends you missed so much during the school year.

 

 

 

three-half-stars

About Jen Calonita

A former entertainment editor at a teen magazine, Jen started out her career chronicling backstage life at concerts with Justin Timberlake and interviewing Zac Efron on film sets. It was her work in the entertainment world that inspired her first series, Secrets of My Hollywood Life. The six-book series about a teen starlet named Kaitlin Burke who grew weary of the fame game, but loved being an actress was published in nine countries. Jen’s other young adult novels include Sleepaway Girls and Summer State of Mind (since she was a camp counselor as a teen), Reality Check and Belles, which is about two polar opposite girls who share one life-altering secret. Her latest young adult book, Turn It Up, is about a girls’ high school acapella group.

Kate


2 responses to “Summer State Of Mind By Jen Calonita

Leave a Reply

(Enter your URL then click here to include a link to one of your blog posts.)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.