Book review: Summer Skin by Kirsty Eagar

Summer Skin by Kirsty Eagar

Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: February 1, 2016
Source: Purchased

Jess Gordon is out for revenge. Last year the jocks from Knights College tried to shame her best friend. This year she and a hand-picked college girl gang are going to get even.

The lesson: don’t mess with Unity girls.

The target: Blondie, a typical Knights stud, arrogant, cold . . . and smart enough to keep up with Jess.

A neo-riot grrl with a penchant for fanning the flames meets a rugby-playing sexist pig – sworn enemies or two people who happen to find each other when they’re at their most vulnerable?

It’s all Girl meets Boy, Girl steals from Boy, seduces Boy, ties Boy to a chair and burns Boy’s stuff. Just your typical love story.

I am, slowly but surely, making my way through all of the books I impulsively bought myself over the summer. Summer Skin is a book that I had seen floating around a lot around the time of its original publication in Australia and then again when it was published in the US. It had mixed reviews, but most books with a feminist message usually do. My expectations were (reasonably) high, but I was just so disappointed by this book.

The biggest problem I had with this book is the fact that, aside from your stereotypical new adult storyline, absolutely nothing happens in this book. Jess and Mitch get together, grow apart, get together, grow apart, and get together again. They fight, they want to be together, they argue about whether they’re ever going to kiss, they have some misunderstandings… it’s just exhausting.

In addition to that, there are wayyy too many music references in this book. We rarely went two pages without some specific band being referenced, from P!nk to Tame Impala to Lorde to The Ting Tings. I’m sure that some of these references will age well, but in 2018, are college kids really partying to The Ting Tings? They’re from my college days. Ten years ago.

I’ve also seen so many reviews talking about how sexy this book is. Did I read the same book as everyone else? I cringed at every sex scene. I couldn’t get over how Mitch was willing to do anything sexual with Jess but he thought that kissing would take it too far.

Maybe I’m officially too old for new adult now.

#killingthetbr: 4 months on shelf

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Have you read Summer Skin? Is it on your TBR?
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