Strawberry Summer by Melissa Brayden

Strawberry Summer by Melissa Brayden

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Just like the most recent Jae book, Falling Hard I believe it was/is titled, there is nothing specifically 'wrong' with the latest offering from either author. There just wasn't anything specifically special about either. And I kind of expect special from Brayden and special from Jae. It's unfair of me, I know, but . . . that's one of those risks that occur when you read an author enough to put them into a 'must read' category.

One positive - the book kept veering into directions where I just knew I'd be annoyed - that traps would be sprung, clichés would be expressed, but the book kept from going that extra annoying step. So kept from springing the traps and clichés of other books.

This book here stars Maggie who is was and always will be a lesbian – even her family knew that (though Maggie herself hadn’t gotten around to telling them). She ends up entangled with another woman and they have something of a relationship. Nothing of Courtney’s view is seen, though, just Maggie’s. One of the vaguely cliché parts is the part where Courtney, reminiscent of a Gun Brooke book, has a dick of a rich father and a either almost not there mother, or a not-interfering with dick father mother (though, to be fair to Brooke, one of her books does have the ‘dick’ parent be the mother). But then some of the steps I expected to have happen . . . didn’t actually happen – some of the roads traveled down in other books that involve rich dickish parents and young women trying to live their life (either outside of their control, within their control, or some mix).

I took the opportunity offered to mention one of the ‘traps’ and messed up my paragraph. Mmphs.
ETA: part of that 'messed up my paragraph' was the part where I wanted to emphasis that Maggie was a lesbian, while Courtney just 'was', she doesn't like labels, though, boiled down, Maggie 'labels her' as a bisexual (since Courtney lusts after who she lusts after, regardless of gender, and Maggie sees that as bisexual).

Book opens with a prologue. Margaret is hopping around town, somewhere around 26 or so, and somewhere ‘Now’ (It is unclear when the events of this book occur – judging by the constant mention of Facebook, and how the town just put up a Facebook page, and how Facebook was founded in 2004 . . . I’d put the flashback years somewhere around 2006 to 2010, depending on how ‘slow’ the town was to jump on the bandwagon, and the ‘Now’ time at about 2015 to 2017 (the now time is 7 years after the flashback time, wait, I know – the characters are roughly 24-25 in now time then since they were roughly 16-17 in the flashback years (wait, no, started at roughly 16, ended at roughly . . . 19? 20? So somewhere around 26-27 in the Now years)). While Margaret is hopping around doing her thing, she runs across Courtney – who she hasn’t seen in a long time. And doesn’t really want to see now. Bad situation all around – the two had dated when they were even younger than they are now and it ended badly.

Then the book proceeds to spend a good long portion, maybe 65% or so of the book, in a ‘flashback’ back to high school and college (part of my problem of dates – we kept having ‘we did this here [insert scene] *the next summer* [insert scene] *the next summer* [insert scene] *2 summers later* [scene] *9 months later* [scene] *six months later* [scene]’ and by the end of all that I’ve no real clue how much time actually passed, though I got the impression a ton of time passed.

In terms of characters and growth . . . I didn’t really notice as much as I’d expect. Though I’m basing that almost entirely on how throughout the story Margaret had a massive chip on her shoulder and was a reverse-snob – anyone who was slightly popular, fashionable, etc., was assumed to be a asshole; and you - the reader – saw that crop up through time in the flashbacks (didn’t want to be near Melanie and group because they were fashionable/popular, though it was more Margaret’s issue not theirs (which she saw, once she actually talked with them, as them ‘chilling the hell out’ but . . heh, no, it was Maggie actually talking with them and not being a dick to them – hell, her own older brother was the most popular kid when he was at the high school, so all that ‘farm kid vs. town kid’ was probably there but not to the extent Maggie thought it was; years later Maggie made snide comments about Courtney’s Chicago friends based on their supposed snobbishness; then in the ‘Now’ sections Maggie was still making comments like that – though she tried, at least, to stop herself and to suppress them they still existed. She’s a successful real estate agent and had a successful management level second job with the strawberry farm and she still had this chip on her shoulder – though she was friends with some of those who she said had to chill out before she would be friends with them).

Basically my point is that everything is from Maggie’s point of view, and therefore ‘unfair’ to Courtney’s side of things and yet, Maggie is the one coming off ‘bad’ here. So, there’s that.

Wow, this is a bunch of stream of conscious gibberish. Mmphs.

Rating: 3.48

April 25 2017



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