The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls

by Jessica Spotswood

One summer will challenge everything the Garrett sisters thought they knew about themselves—and each other.

Kat lands the lead in the community theater’s summer play, but the drama spills offstage when her ex and his new girlfriend are cast too. Can she get revenge by staging a new romance of her own?

Bea and her boyfriend are heading off to college together in the fall, just like they planned when they started dating. But Bea isn’t sure she wants the same things as when she was thirteen…

Vi has a crush on the girl next door. It makes her happy and nervous, but Cece has a boyfriend…so it’s not like her feelings could ever be reciprocated, right?

As the oldest, Des shoulders a lot of responsibility for her family and their independent bookstore. Except it’s hard to dream big when she’s so busy taking care of everyone else.

~ Paperback Princess Blurb ~

The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls by Jessica Spotswood is four stories interwoven into one. It's a story of four sisters navigating their own lives whilst trying to remain as one family unit, during their potentially, last summer all together. 

The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls is four stories rolled into the one book. It's a beautifully written YA contemporary novel perfect for a summer read...or for those of us "hoping" it was summer 😆

The characters of this novel really made it perfect for me. The sisters; Des, Bea, Kat & Vi, had such distinctive voices, and their own individual stories that I thoroughly enjoyed each one. It's told in alternating chapters between the four sisters, but they were in systematical order (oldest to youngest and repeat) and were also clearly labeled so there was no confusion who was who, however, once you have read a few chapters into the book you'll no longer need to be told who's chapter it was, as each girl had distinctive voices. The similarities between the four stop at their looks, they couldn't be more different. 

Des is the eldest and has taken on the motherly role since they lost their parents and her Grandmother had knee surgery. She does all the cleaning and runs the family book store. She finds herself wanting more for herself, and she goes to explore these avenues, unfortunately not all her "trials" and "experiments" worked out too well, but in the journey she found herself a bit more, and found her voice. 

Bea is the success story. She is going to college at Georgetown, she's got a journalism internship at the local newspaper and has a long-term boyfriend that she is assumed to be marrying in the future, but she's now unsure if she still wants the life she's created. 

Kat is a drama queen (literally) and a heartbroken one at that; she's been left for another girl. In her efforts to win back her ex, she soon discovers that maybe what she originally seen in him was not what she wanted all along, and just maybe there's someone better for her.

Vi is the youngest sister and she's had a long crush on a girl she's known her whole life, but just because she's confident enough to come out to the world, not everyone is, and we see her journey into finding out whether the girl of her dreams...even likes girls!

I absolutely loved the girls, and it's definitely a character driven novel. You just fall in love with these girls, and just want things to work out for all of them, that's truly what kept me reading till the end. I was definitely invested in the characters.

I am truly amazed at Jessica's skills in how she wrote this novel; having four distinctive characters is quite hard to write, yet she did it so well, it's fluidity and distinction was well done.

The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls is a young adult contemporary novel that is somewhat a coming of age story, each of the four sisters are on a journey to try and figure out their life, who they are and what they want. Definitely a must read for those that enjoy The Gilmore Girls, Little Women and any other novel that has bad ass feminist characters! 

Don't forget to check out my Author Interview with Jessica Spotswood, which will be posted tomorrow!