by Valerie Hobbs
ages: 10+
First sentence: “Lucy sat on the porch steps with her arms hugging her legs and a big black bag over her head.”
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Shall we talk titles for a bit? Because I love the title of this book. It’s the sole reason I picked it up. It evokes so much: the lazy, fun summer days, hanging out at the pool or just being slow and bordering on bored. But there’s a bittersweet element to it, too: summer’s finally coming to a close, the magical time where everything is hot and sultry and lazy will give way to the scheduled and the rigid and, eventually, the cold. How can you not love a title that makes you think of so much?

Then again, maybe loving the title of the book — it is only the title after all — sets up the book for a fall. (Not necessarily, but in this case it did.) Our twelve-year-old protagonist, Lucy, is riddled with all kinds of doubt and confusion: she wants to be popular like her best friend, Megan (or does she?). She is embarrassed by Eddie, the 13-year-old boy with Down Syndrome, with whom she’s developed a friendship of sorts (or is she really his friend? She is getting paid to play with him, after all.) She longs to spend time with her Grams out at the lake, expecting everything to be perfect (or will it be?). She hates her parents, especially her overprotective mom, who just doesn’t understand (or does she?). This last, best week of summer is Lucy trying to figure out being twelve.

Except it all came off much like an after-school special. I’m not sure if it was too much tell and not enough show (Lucy felt angry. Lucy felt disappointed. Lucy sulked. Lucy wanted to go home. Yeah, yeah, yeah), or if it was the saccharine nature of the story (accept yourself for who you are, and accept others for who they are. Oh, yeah: and being popular is overrated), but it just fell flat on its face. Which is really too bad: Hobbs is dealing with some good subject matter here. There’s disabilities, there’s early-onset dementia in a loved one, there’s the awkwardness of moving from a child to a teenager. But it didn’t work — in a big way — for me.

But isn’t that title lovely?