Audiobook Review | We’ll Always Have Summer

Decided to give the last book in this series a shot.

We’ll Always Have Summer
Jenny Han

One girl. Two boys. The biggest decision of her life . . .

Just when Isabel thinks she had everything mapped out, life proves that when it comes to love, you can never have all the answers . . .

Isabel has only ever loved two boys, Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher. She’s grown up with them, and can’t imagine life without them.

One broke her heart, the other made her happier than she ever thought she’d be.

But each brother is keeping a secret from Isabel, and this summer she must choose between the Fisher boys, once and for all. Which brother will it be?

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When I finished the second book of this series I knew I wanted to give this last book a shot, even though this series has not really been what I expected I still wanted to see it through. This book is in a sense new ground because the TV series hasn’t reached this far through the series, and whilst the two are different, I didn’t even have an inclination of what might happen in this book.

When I realised that the characters had moved on to college, I hoped Belly would have matured further and would continue the streak of being more bearable. It was all going really well until she made an utterly terrible decision that makes up a really large chunk of the plot line and I spent the rest of the book so frustrated with her and her idiocy.

The most annoying thing about it is, if she hadn’t made that stupid decision I think I would have been pleasantly surprised by her growth as a character in other aspects. There was an interesting vulnerability to her and she was finally able to show that she had power when it came to Jeremiah and Conrad, unfortunately, this fell a bit flat because I was mostly infuriated with her.

I also felt like in this book Jeremiah and Conrad suddenly had very different personalities, like they needed to be different to fit the ending the author wanted. I know that people do change, especially as they go off to college and start to get to know themselves better but this felt like too much of a change to be natural.

Another thing that I struggled with was that nothing really happened for the majority of the book, there was a lot of thinking about feelings, and a little reminiscing, but most of it was focused on Belly’s decision. This meant that there was a lot of superfluous detail in this story, which was a bit jarring, I noticed it every time.

I did like that we got Conrad’s perspective in this book and it gave us an insight into his feelings, it felt relevant compared to when we heard from Jeremiah in the last book. However, it also felt as if it was to try and pave the way in his relationship with Belly without having to do any of the work between the two characters.

I think what redeemed this once again was the narration by Lola Tung and Christopher Briney, I definitely kept listening because I could listen to Lola’s soft and happy voice all day. On reflection, I think I’d still definitely recommend the TV series over reading the books, I think I got more from the characters and it’s what helped me through this series.