Rowena’s review of How to Meet Boys by Catherine Clark.

Lucy can’t wait to spend the summer at the lake with her best friend, Mikayla. But when Jackson, the boy she’s been avoiding ever since he rejected her, reappears in her life, Lucy wonders if this summer to remember is one she’d rather forget.

Mikayla’s never had much luck talking to boys, but when she (literally) runs into the cutest guy she’s ever seen, and sparks fly, she thinks things might be looking up…until she realizes the adorable stranger is the same boy who broke her best friend’s heart.

As things begin to heat up between Mikayla and the one guy she should avoid, will Lucy be able to keep her cool or will the girls’ perfect summer turn into one hot mess?

Catherine Clark, the author of beach-read favorites Maine Squeeze and Love and Other Things I’m Bad At, has once again crafted a hilarious and spot-on portrayal of what it’s really like to be a teenager. Readers will love this irreverent coming-of-age story…and will be breathlessly turning the pages to find out what happens next.

I had really high hopes for this book and I’m sad that it didn’t live up to pretty much, any of them.  I thought this was going to be a cute and fluffy summer romance story and while there are summer romances, I didn’t really connect with either of them.

Mikayla and Lucy are best friends and they’re spending the summer together at the lake, in a cabin all by themselves.  And while the cabin isn’t at all what Lucy’s grandmother led them to believe, the two girls are determined to make it a good summer.  Lucy has a summer job working at her grandparent’s apple store (they do not sell apple products, but actual apples) and Mikayla has a summer job at the country club.

Lucy knows people in town, having spent her childhood with her grandparents and she’s not at all happy to find out that her grandparents hired the one boy that she never wants to see again to work with her that summer.  Jackson and Lucy were good friends back before Lucy tries to kiss Jackson and he…doesn’t want her to.  She’s embarrassed and doesn’t want to see him again but doesn’t really have a choice since they work together.

Mikayla is meeting a lot of new people at her job at the country club.  She’s making new friends and Lucy is happy for her.  She’s also met a guy that she’s totally crushing on.  This boy almost ran her over, on her first day in town and when he turns out to be Jackson, Lucy’s Jackson, Mikayla is torn.  Jackson is the first guy that she can have a full conversation with but he’s Lucy’s Jackson, the guy that embarrassed her best friend and she can’t go there…she really can’t.

Only as the story progresses, she does.  She can’t help herself.  And that whole thing just didn’t sit well with me.

I couldn’t connect with either Lucy and Mikayla and when we find out Jackson’s reasons for the way he rejected and then ignored Lucy, I thought it was beyond stupid.  I was also completely confused about the whole trip.  I was under the impression that it was a best friends trip and yet, Lucy and Mikayla didn’t spend much time together at all.  Didn’t understand that bit at all.

I wanted to like both girls but after a while, I just started caring less and less about both of them.  I can normally get behind a forbidden love kind of story but this one just didn’t do anything for me.  I went into this story expecting to get a cute story and this just fell flat for me.

Grade: 1 out of 5

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