Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

Anna's best friend Frankie has the perfect idea: when they go to California for a three-week vacation they should meet a new boy every day. That way, they'll each be sure to find someone they like and have time for a summer romance. But Anna is hiding a secret, one that she isn't sure if she should tell Frankie about. The summer before, Anna had a summer romance, but it was with Frankie's older brother Matt, right before he died in a car accident. The three of them had been best friends their whole lives, so Matt wanted to wait to tell Frankie, but never got the chance to because he died. Anna doesn't want to forget about Matt but she also wants to move on, too. Fortunately, a vacation in Zanzibar Bay will help to heal both Anna and Frankie and their friendship.

I really enjoyed Twenty Boy Summer. It had a really interesting idea: a girl having to move on from the death of her secret boyfriend. I had never read a book like that before, so it was nice to read something different. I also liked the characters. Frankie was the pretty boy-crazy girl who liked to get into mischief, while Anna was the shyer one. I liked their idea of meeting twenty boys over a span of three weeks. I was actually disappointed when we didn't get to see that many different boys; both girls find a boy they like and stick to them. As for Sam, Anna's new love interest, I liked him but I felt like we didn't get too much information about him. He seemed like a nice guy, but was kept in the background. Maybe the author wanted the focus to be on Matt, but I would have liked to learn more about Sam. I also enjoyed reading the flashbacks about Matt. It made the story more real and showed us Anna's grief in a different way, since she loved revisiting old memories. The story was sad, but it was also one of healing, as both girls start to move on and accept the fact that Matt might be gone from the world, but he won't be gone from their hearts. (That was pretty corny, but true).

8 out of 10.