The Summer of Skinny Dipping by Amanda Howells

Sourcebooks Fire:

After getting dumped by her boyfriend, sixteen-year-old Mia Gordon is looking forward to spending a relaxing summer in the Hamptons with her glamorous cousins. But when she arrives, her cousins are distant, moody, and caught up with a fast crowd. Mia finds herself lonelier than ever.

That's when she meets her next-door-neighbor, Simon Ross. Simon isn't like the snobby party boys her cousins seem obsessed with; he's funny, artistic, and utterly adventurous. And from the very first time he encourages Mia to go skinny-dipping, she's caught up in a current impossible to resist.

Timeless in feel, The Summer of Skinny-Dipping is a poignant, literary read sure to dazzle tweens and teens alike.

The Summer of Skinning Dipping exudes summer and that I really liked that about it. You brush off (or try to) the school year and set off for a new adventure, summer. This summer Mia is met with some challenges and some surprises. In her cousin Corine she finds someone pretty different from who she remembers being attached to at the hip. It's something that is very hard to grasp when someone you thought you knew becomes a different person, a person that you don't relate so well to anymore. Do you just go along with it or do you do what you want to even in the face of laughter?

I really admired Mia's struggle to keep her cousin's friendship but stay true to herself, she's sensitive but honest in her journey. And in the midst of this Mia meets Simon who encourages her to just be herself and maybe even push the boundaries a little bit. I found their relationship to develop a lot more realistic than others I've seen.

There are a great mix of elements in this story that kept me interested and I few answers I was definitely reading for. What is going on with Mia's parents? Why is Corine so angry at her mother? It was a nice balance of light summery things and rather important things that can be learned about yourself and others over one summer.

I will say that the ending definitely took me by surprise and I haven't totally made my mind up about that, luckily the author has agreed to stop by later this summer to talk a bit more about that!

The Summer of Skinny Dipping was released on June 1st 2010!
Genre: Young Adult
4/5 Stars
ARC provided by the publisher

Sourcebooks Fire is holding a contest for copies of the book over in their ning! To enter you need to think up a original summer romance title and share a little bit about why you picked the title! The reasoning for this is because the author of The Summer of Skinny Dipping came up with her title before her story! Enter here!