Reading with ABC: Blog Tour, Review and Giveaway: The Boys of Summer by C.J. Duggan

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Blog Tour, Review and Giveaway: The Boys of Summer by C.J. Duggan

Welcome to my stop on The Boys of Summer blog tour hosted by YA Bound. Click HERE to check out the full blog tour schedule!

Title: The Boys of Summer (Summer #1)

by C.J. Duggan

Release Date: 12/17/12

Pages: 294 pages
Source: Provided by the author for review
Format: eBook
Group age: New Adult
Genre: Contemporary romance
Grade rate: A

It seemed only natural to nickname them the ‘OnslowBoys’. Every time they swaggered in the front doorof the Onslow Hotel after a hard week’s work, their laughter was loud and genuine as they settled onto their bar stools. I peeked through the restaurant partition, a flimsy divider between my world and theirs. I couldn’t help but smile whenever I saw them, saw him ... Toby Morrison.
Quiet seventeen-year-old Tess doesn’t relish the thought of a summertime job. She wants nothing more than to forget the past haunts of high school and have fun with her best friends before the dreaded Year Twelve begins.To Tess, summer is when everything happens: riding bikes down to the lake, watching the fireworks at the Onslow Show and water bomb fights at the sweltering Sunday markets.
How did she let her friends talk her into working?
After first-shift disasters, rude, wealthy tourists and a taunting ex-boyfriend, Tess is convinced nothing good can come of working her summer away. However, Tess finds unlikely allies in a group of locals dubbed ‘The Onslow Boys’, who are old enough to drive cars, drink beer and not worry about curfews. Tess’s summer ofworking expands her world with a series of first times with new friends, forbidden love and heartbreaking chaos.
All with the one boy she has never been able to forget. It will be a summer she will always remember.Warning: sexual references, and occasional course language.

My Review

What an amazing book! The Boys of Summer turned out to be one of my favorite contemporary novels!

Tess, Ellie and Adam are starting year 12 and they are the best of friends that form a tight protective circle around each other. They know and accept one another for the amazing people that they are. At the same time I thing that each one of them enable each other to stay stagnant and unchanged, until they planned to work together at the Onslow hotel for the holidays. Due to unforeseen circumstances, only Ellie and Tess end of working and together they start hanging out with the “Onslow Boys” (named by Ellie after their town). The Onslow boys: Toby, Chris, Ringer, Stan and Sean, are 22-year-old, handsome, and a really great group of friends.

I love Tess’s voice. She was filled with insecurities and consciously chose to rise above them. She is smart, loyal to her friends, quirky, funny and beautiful. She isn’t perfect, in fact, just like real life, none of the characters are. But she grows a lot during the span of school break and I think that the same happens to Ellie.

All the Onslow boys are incredible, but so it happens, that Toby is the object of Tess’ affections. She has been watching him from afar for years, a fact that she had kept to herself. Toby is a really good guy, but quiet and he didn’t make his feelings clear from the beginning as he should have done. Especially since Tess was still 17, and going through her adolescent battles. At the end I fell in love with Toby, just like Tess did.

The characterization is superb, all of them having a distinct voice and personality. The Onslow boys, Adam, Ellie, even Rosanna and Melba are unique and add something to the story. The setting of The Boys of Summer is Australia and I found the descriptions of the natural beauty and of the town added a lot to substance. The writing is outstanding.

I will definitely read the rest of the books in the series, as I said when I started my incoherent excited babbling, I adore this book and I’m looking forward to visiting Onslow again!

Beautiful and simple cover, right?

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