This definitely isn’t my favorite Sarah Dessen book, but being that this was her first book, I’m super impressed. It’s not about that much, but this author just has a way of making characters into real people and giving all the family and friendship development. It was nice and short and sweet & I’m happy I reread it!!

PS- I read this on audio & it took a minute to get used to this narrator. I liked her better than the Dreamland narrator, but my fave is the Lock & Key narrator. ( )

Made me thoughtful.
Different but very fitting and very beautiful in its own way.
I love this story of change and growing up. ( )

I think it is time for Sarah Dessen and I to part company. Although she writes for teenage girls, I find her protagonists annoying and self-centred, and Haven was no exception. She was bratty and I was irritated by the way she kept looking back to 'that summer' with rose-coloured glasses.

Overall, I found the characters flat, the plot bland and there was too much teenage angst for my liking. The only positive going for "That Summer" was that it was a short read. ( )

Rating 3.14 out of 5 stars
This one was a short story that wasn't boring, but wasn't exciting either. It was like listening to your aunt tell a story from her past. Slightly interesting.
My rating system:
initial feeling= 2
writing= 4
story= 2
originality= 3
unpredictability= 4
ending= 3
interest= 4 ( )

I've only read one other Sarah Dessen book and I'm glad I didn't start with this one. I chose one of her highest rated books to read then chose this one because I needed something lighter and it happened to be available on my library's overdrive account. This book read more like a novella (it came in at a whopping 194 pages on my Kindle). While there's nothing wrong with this, there definitely wasn't a whole lot that happened. The book covers most of one summer and there are such big time gaps with not much happening overall in terms of plot. This is definitely a character driven book with the main character Haven (whose name I unfortunately has to look up even after just finishing it) having to face a lot of change with both her father and sister's marriages in the same summer. Part of the problem was that I'm not 15/16 years old anymore like the main character and another was that this read like a cross between a diary and a first person narrative. Both kept me feeling like I couldn't quite make a connection which left me feeling like this book while having good overall intentions fell a little flat for me. Better luck next time on my next Sarah Dessen... whenever the contemporary mood falls upon me. ( )