This is a spoiler-free review!
I downloaded this from a Stuff Your Kindle day a long time ago, and now that the weather has decided to lighten up, I figured I needed to make a dent in my summer romance TBR. I do not read too much reverse haram or why choose romance books, but this one definitely took me by surprise. I thought that Summer would be drawn to one boy and the rest would become somewhat of background characters, but that is certainly not the case for this new adult romance. To be honest, I did not even realize it was a reveres harem - I thought she would pick one boy after multiple books and a five-way love triangle (love pentagon?). Personally, if I found out a group of described beach bums only hooked up with girls in the summer and had a pact, I would be running for the hills.
The boys - Justin, Whit, Pete, and Nick - are a little... forgettable. There was never a moment where I found myself more drawn to one of them and they were all pretty subpar in my eyes. You could easily tell that this book must have originally been written for Summer to end up with one single romantic interest, given the amount of page time one of the boys receives compared to the others. Lawson definitely should have done some more revisions with her editor since you almost start rooting for the other boys to just disappear and let Summer and who I imagine the original love interest was to go off into the sunset together.
Summer's relationship with all of the boys is mostly on an individual basis - they are not really a "group" so to speak. She basically has four boyfriends but the boyfriends aren't boyfriends with each other, if that makes sense. I wish the author either stuck with the reverse harem trope or abandoned it, as it feels half-finished and not enough time was dedicated to develop their relationship as a full group. Outside of just being around one another, the boys really do not have a ton of interaction on page, and readers are basically only shown each boy having their little moments with Summer alone.
I think this would have worked a lot better if this was not a new adult/high school romance but rather a college romance - they all seem very immature, and considering Summer's most recent relationship, it definitely would have benefited from some maturity. The side plot with her author mother was interesting, but for a romance book, it took up a lot of page space when the author could have been deepening the relationship between Summer, Whit, Pete, Justin, and Nick. I will probably finish this series if I need something quick to read, but if you are looking for a fast read with lots of PG-13 moments, this could be the series for you. Much like the Summer Unplugged series by Amy Sparling, this romance book plays it safe when it comes to the actual romance portion of the plot.
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