One Reckless Summer

One Reckless Summer - Toni Blake

370 pages

Rating: 2/5

The perfect daughter. The perfect prom queen. The perfect wife.

Jenny Tolliver's been the good girl all her life, and it's gotten her nowhere. Now that her marriage has been busted up by her cheating ex, she's decided it's time to regroup and rediscover herself. This summer she's headed back to her hometown of Destiny, Ohio, to the very lakeshore cottage where she grew up, to figure out what life holds in store for her next.

She never dreamed the answer would be Mick Brody, Destiny's #1 hellraiser. He comes from the wrong side of the tracks (or in his case, the lake), and he's landed in hot water more times than he can count. He's exactly the kind of guy Jenny's always kept her distance from . . . but soon the good girl and the bad boy are caught in a raw heat that's out of control. Too bad Mick's got a secret that threatens to tear them apart and ruin Jenny's perfectly, passionately reckless summer . . .

My Thoughts:
I really debated reviewing this novel, mostly because I hate giving a bad review.  The last thing I want to do is be mean, especially when I have no idea who reads the words I write.  But I decided that for better or worse, these are my thoughts, my opinions.  And just as I want to encourage others to read great books, I hope to steer people in the direction of books they will like.  And if I did not like a book, there might be someone else like me who will want to spend their time on a novel they will enjoy more.  So here it goes.

I had a hard time finishing this novel.  To be honest, I almost put it down and never picked it back up.  But about midway through, I got in the mood for a light romance and decided to finish it just for the heck of it.  But this is one book that I probably won't recommend to many people.  I found the characters teenager-ish, the plot predictable, and the romance mostly about chemistry.  The basic story is about a new divorcee, but she and her friends constantly act like hormone-crazed teenagers.  I never truly connected with any of them.  I can understand the idea of being frustrated with being the good girl, especially right after you get screwed over.  But I found it unrealistic that an adult would spend an entire summer doing nothing but messing around with the boy-across-the-lake and giggling about it with her best friend.  And she is supposed to care about Mick, but she ends up sharing his deepest secret that could really mess up his life and it's like "oops, I totally forgot I wasn't supposed to tell!"  It mostly annoyed me, and I spent half the book going, "really?!"

Ultimately, it's a cute story, but there really isn't much to it.  If you take the book as a fun summer read and forget that these are supposed to be adults, it's a fun read.  I read one blogger who said this about another book, but I thought it was appropriate, "If the library doesn't have it, don't bother."  I would only recommend it for those who are looking for mindless fun or a completely unrealistic beach read.