Review: Awakening of the Summer by Yorker Keith

You know what the worst thing possibly ever is? When you have a great week of reads and then you pick up a book and it just does not read AT all. I read two great books last week, both 5 star reads, so perhaps my expectations were higher than they might normally be, but it just led to such a reading slump. I got to finish Riverdale but I also felt so bad about my slump – but also very disappointed. Such a struggle, amirite?

Anyways, Awakening of the Summer was sent to me courtesy of the author for an honest review. This review will be a little hard to write considering the book was free, and I hate to bash on something that was so graciously provided but as I am sure my intro shows, I absolutely did not like the book. I came soooo close to DNF’ing.

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

This romantic literary fiction represents a present-day pastoral story of a man and two sisters who go through intricate triple love-triangles during their summer vacation in a mountain resort.

Basically, a really rich guy goes to a resort and meets two really rich sisters who have really rich boyfriends and falls in love with both. Both boyfriends and sisters have secrets and they all get involved in a messy love story.

Apart from the fact that there are basically no secondary characters to the story, the main characters themselves are absolutely two-dimensional and unbelievable. I understand that this book is supposed to be a dramatic romance, but the women are very obviously written with a male gaze. I lost track of how many times the main character fantasized about them and called them nymphs. The descriptions were actually one of the worst parts of the story. There is detailed and then there is, “can we get this over with already?”. The descriptions of what they wore, what they looked like, and their character were grating and way overused.

The storyline itself was also hard to follow/believe. In a mere three days, the two sisters have already exchanged “I love you” with the protagonist. Also, I don’t know in what world such passionate people would have a rational conversation about who should be together because all three are in love. Even taking out the romantic aspects of the story (since I often complain about the speed of romances) the conversations were awkward and unreal, and the other details were not well written. From the police chase to the open house of an amateur artist, I felt like the author had either not researched his work, or simply had thrown common sense to the wind.

This book was supposedly short listed for an award, but in my opinion, it is not even worth reading. The only people I would recommend to read this book would be either a fan of extreme Insta-love romance or someone who lives in fantasy land and isn’t put off by misogyny. If that isn’t you, stay away from this one.

Meanwhile, I am starting to read the Book of Essie, and hopefully will enjoy that one much more. Good luck with your reading week!