Night Owls and Summer Skies

June 26, 2020

Gr 6-10-Seventeen-year-old Emma Lane expected to spend the summer after high school sniping with her flighty, homophobic mother. Emma never assumed her mother would dump her at the same summer camp where Emma developed anxiety, rooming with the bully who originally caused her panic. Desperate to get kicked out of camp and sent home to her dad, Emma is surprised to learn that, with the right friends, Camp Mapplewood can be a place of renewal and maybe even romance with her hot, sarcastic camp counselor Vivian. While it is refreshing to read a LGBTQ love story starring three girls who do not identify as straight, this book leaves readers wanting more. In its attempts to normalize anxiety, panic attacks, and PTSD-a worthy effort-the book makes Emma seem inconsistent. On one page, she is shy, awkward, and can barely speak from fear, and just a few pages later she is openly, easily flirting with a girl she just met. The two-dimensional secondary characters might be overlooked for a fast-paced plot or strong writing, but the slow, plodding storyline and choppy sentence structure mean this story struggles to keep the reader's attention. VERDICT This chaste LGBTQ summer romance may appeal to fans of Twilight and other will-they-won't-they love stories. While this is a good example of a NaNoWriMo story-turned-published-book, it lacks the depth and character development to recommend for purchase.-Annamarie Carlson, Westerville P.L., OH

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2020
Emma's parents are divorced, and she dreads her upcoming summer visit with her mother, who refuses to accept that she is gay. After she leaves the Boston home she shares with her father and arrives in Maine, Emma's reluctance turns to astonishment: Her mother reveals she has gotten married, is going on a honeymoon, and is dumping Emma at Camp Mapplewood. Emma's astonishment then turns to dread. Five summers ago, when she was 12, fellow campers Lauren and Mike inflicted trauma on her at that very camp, leaving her trapped high up in a tree above a wasps' nest--despite her serious allergy to their stings. Emma has been managing depression and PTSD ever since. Emma is additionally disturbed when she discovers Lauren will be one of her cabin mates. Over the next two months, Emma learns many lessons as she copes with her fears, forms close relationships with members of the family who run the camp, and engages in a slow-motion romance. Told from Emma's point of view, the book is rife with implausible situations, such as counselors setting up an activity designed to encourage campers to act out violently against one another. The stilted dialogue tries too hard to be witty banter, the characters are underdeveloped and their motivations are unclear, and the plot is flimsy. Whiteness of all characters is implied. A disappointing lesbian romance in the woods. (Fiction. 13-18)

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