The Summer My Life Began by Shannon Greenland

Elizabeth Margaret—better known as Em—has always known what life would contain: an internship at her father’s firm, a degree from Harvard and a career as a lawyer. The only problem is that it’s not what she wants. When she gets the opportunity to get away from it all and spend a month with the aunt she never knew, she jumps at the chance. While there, Em pursues her secret dream of being a chef, and she also learns that her family has kept some significant secrets from her, too. And then there’s Cade, the laid-back local surfer boy who seems to be everything Em isn't. Naturally, she can’t resist him, and as their romance blossoms, Em feels she is living on her own terms for the first time.


This book was all it promised, cute, cliche and a quick read.
It was entirely predictable (apart from at one point for me).

Elizabeth Margaret. Not Elizabeth, not Margaret, Elizabeth Margaret. I know her parents were posh and all, but seriously: two long first names? I thought people only had mulitple middle names or first names that were hyphenated. And not that long.

Em wasn't my favourite of characters... I found her quite annoying. I wouldn't mind if she made me a meal though; she was a great cook.

When it came to the Cade/Em relationship I got very confused. At one point I was sure that Shannon Greenland had made it out that Cade was in a relationship with Beth, but either it was a joke or it was a different person.

Tilly's scandalous  misendeavor wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Having recently read Pretty Amy by Lisa Burstein, I was expecting her to have acted like that, you know trouble with the police and all. What she did was bad and not something I would do, but yeah, I expected worse.

About five seconds after Sid was introduced I knew who he was. That was so poorly disguised that Inspector Clouseau could have figured it out.

The book didn't really have anything that original, just a stringful of cliches tied together. It was a quick, light read that was cute and fluffy.

I'm going to give this book two out of five stars.



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