Rowena’s review of The Summer I Found You by Jolene Perry.

All they have in common is that they’re less than perfect. And all they’re looking for is the perfect distraction.

Kate’s dream boyfriend has just broken up with her and she’s still reeling from her diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. Aidan planned on being a lifer in the army and went to Afghanistan straight out of high school. Now he’s a disabled young veteran struggling to embrace his new life. When Kate and Aidan find each other neither one wants to get attached. But could they be right for each other after all?

Kate and Aidan are both struggling with their new lives.  Kate was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes a year ago and no matter how many times her parents and her friends try to get her to realize the importance of keeping track of what she eats and giving herself shots, she just doesn’t get it.  She spends most of this book hiding from the fact that her life has changed and if she doesn’t get her shit together, she could die.

Aidan, on the other hand is dealing with the fact that he’s only got one arm now.  He was in the army, was near a bomb that blew up and he lost his arm after the bomb went off.  He can’t hide from his problem.  He wakes up every morning and struggles with living life with only one arm.  Being home without a plan wasn’t what Aidan planned for.  He thought he’d be in the Army for many years but when that’s cut short, he spends most of this book trying to figure out where to go and what to do from here on out.

Kate and Aidan meet because Aidan is living in the apartment outside his Uncle’s house.  His cousin is Kate’s best friend.  That’s how they meet.

Before I get into my review, I wanted to make note of the fact that the title of this book is misleading. This book does not take place in the summer.  Kate and Aidan don’t meet in the summer since for most of the book, Aidan is picking Kate up from high school and Kate is always ditching class.  Kate’s a senior so summer? Nope.

This book frustrated the hell out of me.  And most of my frustrations were at Kate’s door.  The choices she made where her diabetes was concerned, the way she’d disregard her parents fear for her life, all of that made me want to throat punch her.  I got that she was young and tried to take that into account but it still pissed me off every time she didn’t stay on top of her sugar counts and fainted at school.  The longer she took to tell Aidan about her diabetes pissed me off too.  The way that Aidan found out was not the way for him to find out.  And when he lights into her at the hospital, I about jumped up and cheered for him because it’s nothing she hadn’t heard before and yet, she didn’t care enough to make an effort to fix herself.

I did enjoy getting to get to know Aidan.  I liked that we had dual POV’s in this book because I thought Aidan was a great character.  There were times when I felt he deserved far better than the likes of Kate but I liked the peace that she gave him and because of that, I didn’t absolutely hate her.

I liked the scenes with Aidan and Kate.  I liked seeing how open and honest Kate was with Aidan (except about the one thing she should have been honest with him about), I loved how she treated him like a normal human being and not some person on display.  She was attracted to Aidan as a person and his lack of an arm in no way changed that.  She didn’t pretend he didn’t have an arm, she didn’t shy away from that but a part of me felt that she was initially attracted to Aidan because he only had one arm.  She connected with him because in a way, she felt they had this thing in common.  This huge life changing part of themselves that made them understand each other.  Aidan didn’t want to be defined by the fact that he only had one arm and Kate didn’t want to be defined by the fact that she was diabetic.  People treated them differently because of these things and it drove Kate up the wall.

Well, she drove me up with the wall with her stupid shenanigans throughout the book.  It was hard for me to fully immerse myself in the story because I spent far too much of the book wanting to strangle Kate.  But aside from that, this story was interesting.  It was interesting to read everything Aidan was going through.  I liked him and admired him for not succumbing to depression.  I admired that he didn’t shut everyone out, that he didn’t talk about what was bothering him.  He didn’t bottle anything up and I liked that.  Far too often, characters in the books that I read bottle shit up after traumatic experiences and it takes them so long to recover from those events and the story drags but that didn’t happen with Aidan.  Aidan owned up to his shortcomings and he worked toward overcoming them.  Lots to respect there.

Overall, this story annoyed the snot out of me but in the end, I was glad that I finished it.  While I didn’t completely love the story, it was still pretty interesting. Aidan saved the book for me though.

Grade: 2.5 out of 5

This book is available from Albert Whitman Teen.  You can purchase it here or here in e-format.  This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest opinion.