Francesca Cocchi is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to heart-tugging stories, and she is now an auto-buy author for me! HAVE A GREAT SUMMER is a debut novel and the perfect book to get lost in! Francesca is going to be the voice in women’s fiction, and she totally knocked it out of the park with her storytelling! The peek into these characters' lives shows you how people deal differently with their problems. Sometimes it’s funny, and other times it left a lump in my throat. I mean seriously, how can you not fall in love with these people and get all up in their business? Besides, it's one of my favorite tropes, second- chance romance! How can you resist?
I feel that the title, HAVE A GREAT SUMMER, is perfect, as is the heart-tugging story. Francesca Cocchi captures the charm, essence, and depth of characters that make for page- turning and emotional reads. Wow!! I loved this book so much! It reminded me of all the summers I spent down at the Jersey Shore! I can almost smell the sausage and pepper sandwiches! HAVE A GREAT SUMMER will cause you to look within your heart and to think about yourself as one of the characters…you think about what you would do, how you would react, and how to proceed given the information. HAVE A GREAT SUMMER is going to be the beach read of this summer!
HAVE A GREAT SUMMER is an emotional story where I laughed, cried, and know that I will be thinking about it long after I finished. The story is well crafted and emotionally engaging. All the characters in HAVE A GREAT SUMMER are very relatable and not perfect at all. You can’t help but feel each emotion that these caring people are dealing with. When one of them was happy, I was happy. When Lina was crying, I was crying too. I love when an author does that to their readers. Francesca Cocchi grabs her readers by the heart and never lets them go. I truly was an emotional mess after reading this heart-tugging story of love and finding a way to get through the situation these people were thrown into.
Now that I have read HAVE A GREAT SUMMER and discovered Francesca Cocchi I’m excited to read more of this new to me, auto buy from now on author. If you are looking for a contemporary read that is filled with heavy subject matter, but still fills you with hope, please take a chance and read HAVE A GREAT SUMMER. Go and grab yourself a Taylor Ham, egg, and cheese on a hard roll(a Jersey delicacy), get on your couch, and get ready to get lost in this perfect love story to the Jersey Shore!
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Fresh Fiction. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Set against a vibrant Jersey Shore backdrop and bursting with summertime romance, hometown nostalgia, smart humor, female friendship, and millennial angst, journalist Francesca Cocchi’s dual-timeline teenage-crush-to-adult-lovers debut is the perfect beach read for fans of Annabel Monaghan, Carley Fortune, and Emily Henry.
If time is supposed to heal all wounds, Lina Mariano’s broken teenage heart never quite got the message—but 15 sunny, sandy, angsty Jersey Shore summers later, she finds herself unexpectedly facing her old crush, getting a new perspective—and maybe even a hopeful glimpse of the future . . .
Lina Mariano is stuck—in her hometown, in her job, and in the past. And after six years of writing up local weddings as a columnist for a popular lifestyle website, she’s wholeheartedly sick of nuptials. Worse, the next one on her list is none other than Sebastian Nikolaou’s.
Working high school summers with sweet, handsome Sebastian at his mother’s iconic beach restaurant, teenage Lina was totally wrapped up in the way he made her feel—until the night that everything changed. Even so, she’s embarrassed to admit how often she still thinks of him, and now, comparing their present lives is wrenching. It will take a careful look at her younger self, and some wisdom from the best friend who was there for it all, to see that making her dreams come true is up to her alone—whether or not those dreams still include Sebastian . . .
Poignant, engaging, and insightful, Have a Great Summer is an ode to the confused teenager in all of us, and a reminder of the blissful, excruciating, delicious days of summers gone by.
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