Review: The Summer That Made Us

The Summer That Made Us by Robyn Carr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Earlier this year, I read Robyn Carr’s Any Day Now. It was the second book in the Sullivan’s Crossing series and I was instantly left wanting to read more of the author’s work. The Summer That Made Us is the result of that desire.

In all honesty, I did not enjoy The Summer That Made Us as much as I enjoyed Any Day Now. Both of the books are deeply emotional reads, yet I found myself more connected with the characters in Any Day Now than I was with the characters in The Summer That Made Us. In all honesty, I believe I can explain why this is – but I’ll save that until later in the review. I’ll start by explaining my general feelings.

It took me a few chapters to fall into the story of The Summer That Made Us. I had a similar experience with Any Day Now, and with this being my second Robyn Carr book, I’m thinking such may be the norm for the author’s work. For me, it took me a while as I felt like the start of the book was made up of a lot of information dumps. There is a lot to understand about the dynamics of the characters and the family, meaning there is a lot of information to be provided. I simply felt, at first, information was thrown in excess. Once all of the information has been shared, the book starts to move faster – but I would have liked for this to have started happening sooner.

Once the story is moving, so many connections come into play. There is so much to be known about all of the characters. There really is a lot happen throughout this one. Secrets are found in the background of all of the characters, more information waiting to be revealed. On top of all these secrets we’re begging to understand, we also have a deeply emotional read. There is so much to deal with – cancer, marital problems, prison, teenage pregnancy, mental health, loss, and so much more. Every character brings something to the story, leaving you intrigued as to where things will go, whilst falling into the deeply emotional family story.

As I found with Any Day Now, the characters were wonderfully realistic. Each brought something different to the table, and we got to experience so much. I enjoyed some of the storylines more than others, but everything came together really well. You get to experience so much throughout this one, taking you on the wild journey of family life.

Despite the deep emotional pull of the story, I wasn’t as lost to it as I had hoped to be. This is why I gave the story a three star rating rather than a four. In truth, it is more of a three-point-five read. With all the emotions at the end of the book I considered giving the four star rating, but I spent more time closer to the three star rating throughout the rest of the book.

The reason for this is more of a personal preference than something everyone will dislike. I’m the kind of person who prefers to follow just a couple of characters throughout a book. With this one, we followed so many different storylines. I never quite lost myself to all of the storylines, finding myself rather disinterested when we were focusing upon certain characters. Whilst I understand the necessity of this within such a story – it is necessary to understand all of the connections within the book – I would have preferred it had we not been flickering between characters within a chapter. I’m much fonder of one chapter following one character, the next following another, and so on when I’m reading a book with multiple characters being central.

Overall, however, this was an enjoyable read. It was deeply emotional, and I’m still willing to read more of the author’s work.

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