Review: It's Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han

Title: It's Not Summer Without You
Author: Jenny Han
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Published: 27th April 2010
Series: Summer #2
Source Own Copy

Can summer be truly summer without Cousins Beach?It used to be that Belly counted the days until summer, until she was back at Cousins Beach with Conrad and Jeremiah. But not this year. Not after Susannah got sick again and Conrad stopped caring. Everything that was right and good has fallen apart, leaving Belly wishing summer would never come.
But when Jeremiah calls saying Conrad has disappeared, Belly knows what she must do to make things right again. And it can only happen back at the beach house, the three of them together, the way things used to be. If this summer really and truly is the last summer, it should end the way it started--at Cousins Beach. - From Goodreads

I think I may have mentioned it before, but this book made me cry like a baby! Jenny Han somehow manages to capture the pain and emotions of losing someone close to you and gets it all down. Somehow I get the feeling if Jenny Han was to give me her shopping list to read it might choke me up. 

This book picks up the summer on from "The Summer I Turned Pretty" and it has a very different feel. Belly, Jeremiah and Conrad are not at the summer house at Cousins Beach this year, but when Conrad goes missing Belly is the one that Jeremiah turns to for help. Parts of this story are so touching that I will admit that I was a total girl and cried along with Belly and the boy's pain. 

From the first book in this series we already know the characters and have a feel for how they think. What I liked about this book was that there was not too much re-hashing of what had already passed in the first novel, but we do get to know of everything that has passed in the time from the last book. This story felt more like a journey type of a book and somehow keeps you rooting for both Conrad and Jeremiah at the same time. 

If you enjoyed The Summer I turn Pretty, I beg you to continue reading these books. Without giving anything away, I will warn you that the end of the novel is so "oh my god did that just happen" that you will want the final installment at had to pick up straight away!!