First off, let me just say that I LOVE the cover for this book! And I love that the book has all these references to sea glass, just like the awesomely beautiful cover. Genius!

And the pages between the fantastic cover are just as awesome. This was undeniably one of my most favorite debut novels this year. Anna and Frankie were phenomenal characters. I totally understood Anna, I got her right away, but it took me the entire novel to finally get Frankie. Incredible. Ockler's depiction of Anna's e More...

Like the stars, fading with the halo of the vanishing moon. Like the ocean, falling and whispering against the shore. Nothing ever really goes away - it just changes into something else. Something beautiful.


Don’t know why I put off reading Twenty Boy Summer for so long, but I’m very glad I was challenged to read this book sooner than later. I really.really.really enjoyed this story! It has all the ingredients of a well-written and perfectly plotted YA contemporary novel, and I fell for the chara More...

I have been waiting to read this book for ages, and although it wasn't quite as fantastic as I had counted on (maybe my high expectations are to blame?), it was definitely a good read.

I think this book is one of the books that has made me cry the most while reading it.
Having read the plot summary, this was to be expected.
Anna, Frankie and Matt have been neighbours and close friends since childhood. Anna has had a crush on Matt for almost as long as that. On her 15th birthday, all her wishes fin More...

Some Spoilers

Anna has been in love with her best friend Matt since they were young kids and on her 15th birthday all of her wishes came true. Not sure how Matt's sister and Anna's best friend Frankie, will take the news, the relationship becomes a secret and before they could tell her, fate steps in and takes Matt away in a horrible accident. Leaving the the family devastated but also leaving Anna, alone, with only bitter sweet memories and a promised secret.
A year later the family goes on vacat More...

Nothing ever really goes away - it just changes into something else. Something beautiful.

Don’t let the light and fluffy title of this book deceive you. This book will make you cry, break your heart and then fill it up with hope again.

Twenty Boy Summer is an unforgettable story about friendships, love, loss, and finding the courage to let go. This book was an emotional roller coaster ride, it made me smile one moment, cry the next, smile some more, cry again but at the end it left me feeling g More...

Rating: 3.5

“Don't move, Anna Reiley. Right now, everything is perfect.”

When the boy you love is the brother of your best friend, things tend to get a tad complicated. In Anna's case, the moment Matt kisses her, she knows without a doubt that he's "the one". Anna is overjoyed but Matt wants to wait before he tells his sister, Frankie. The three have always been a trio of sorts, and he fears revealing their relationship too soon could be too much for her.

Give me a break.

I found it really dodgey h More...

http://inbetweenwritingandreading.blo...

It shattered my heart to pieces, It gave me the deepest wounds, It made me stronger than ever, And it put me back together. Those are the words I have to say about this book.

At first, when I bought the book, I really didn’t know what I was getting into, I mean, 20 boys? One each day? I thought it would be a simple comedy and a fun read for the summer. How wrong I was.

Twenty Boy Summer follows Anna through her summer, where she grieves the dead of the broth More...

“Every story is part of a whole, entire life, you know? Happy and sad and tragic and whatever, but an entire life. And books let you know them.”

Twenty Boy Summer was such a great contemporary novel written about the meaning of friendship, love, loss, and secrets. I fell in love with all the characters, beautiful friendship between Anna and Frankie, and the second love with Sam. This is the perfect YA contemporary novel about heartbreak, tragedy, and learning to move on.

Anna had always had a crus More...

When I read the synopsis I know it would be something emotional. Not those kind that I usually avoid - those that make me cry, but those kind where main character is dealing with lost and heartache. It fascinates me to see and learn how individuals get healed from being emotionally wrecked, how they learned to let go and moved and to meet those people who helped them through it. That's why I decided to read this, because even if it were sad during the first part I know that in the end I'll see a More...

Reviewed by Ashley B for TeensReadToo.com

It has been a year since the tragic death of Matt, Frankie's brother and Anna's best friend. Everyone is still mourning.

Frankie's parents think they are ready to go to their annual vacation spot in Zanzibar Bay, California. And this summer they are bringing Anna along with them.

Here comes the Absolute Best Summer Ever, code name A.B.S.E., for Anna and Frankie. Frankie has come up with the plan for she and Anna to meet twenty boys while in California, for More...

2.5 stars. The beginning and end of the book were great to read and a solid 4 stars. Most of the middle part of the book was 1 star. I'm not sure what else to say. I zipped through the book fairly quickly and liked the idea for the story, but think I wanted more out of the actual vacation and "20 boy challenge" than what was given. There really weren't 20 boys (heck, not even 10!), so the title was extremely misleading.

Mildish spoilers ahead :

What I liked :

Anna and Matt's relationship.

Anna ste More...

This book broke my heart in the most perfect way.

I put off reading this book for so long and I don't know why. I always thought it was because I thought it was going to disappoint me like every other "I'm going to have a summer fling and forget about my boyfriend" book but it wasn't anything like that and never did it disappoint me. In the end, I reasoned that I didn't read it right away because I knew it was going to blow me away and that I wanted to save it for a time when I needed it. I need More...

34 years ago my brother died in a car accident, I was a little over a year old, he was three. I don't remember much about him, save one strange memory of him standing outside the car entertaining me while my mom pumps and pays for gas. I recall the car, the sun sparkling off of the metal on the window and the smell of the summer day mingling with the smell of the gasoline. And, of course, I have the stories, of how he called me Finnie Shell for Stephanie Michelle, how he would chase me around th More...

Sometimes when I'm with him, something will remind me of Matt. A shooting star, the smell of someone's shampoo, a long laugh, a turn of phrase from someone passing by along the shore. When it happens, I close my eyes, count to ten, and will him to go away. To give me back my memories so that something as simple as a song floating out from behind a bonfire doesn't bring me all the way back to him every time.

It was hard to choose just one quote to start my (gushing) review of Twenty Boy Summer. T More...

Rating:
Characters: 20/20
Setting: 9/10
Plot: 19/20
Originality: 20/20
Writing: 18/20
Recommendation: 10/10
Overall: 96/100 or A
Anna is going on a trip with her best friend, Frankie to Zanzibar Bay. Frankie thinks that it will be the perfect time and place for a summer romance, a quick and harmless fling. During swimsuit shopping, Anna and Frankie come up with a plan for the Absolute Best Summer Ever. The plan is to see who can get the most guys in twenty days. The problem is that Anna, isn't over Fran More...

When the same Republic, Missouri school district that banned Slaughterhouse Five banned this book, I figured it must be good and picked it up at the library (yep, sleepy conservative little Florence, Alabama has it in their library, that's how shockingly outside the realm of decency it is).

What I found was a solid 3.5 YA read. Anna goes on vacation with her best friend, Frankie's family, while they all mourn the loss of Frankie's brother, Matt. The big secret is that Matt and Anna were in love. More...

Let me start by saying that I thought this was going to be good. I really did.

But no. I absolutely hated this book. If you put Anna and Frankie's bullshit and Bella Swan's bullshit right beside each other, I might actually choose Bella's bullshit over this.

I reckon they are all on the same wavelength of stupidity. (Especially Bella and Frankie.) Take in the fact that this book has the same amount of hypocrisy and lack of self-respect as Twilight (and then some), but that Twilight has four books More...

There were many flashes of excellent writing in this book (very good for a debut novel), and overall, the plot is not bad. It's just that it could have used some editing. I understand a bit about grief, but that doesn't mean I want to read a LOT about it.

There were a couple of things I wondered about; the girls had already made a trip to Alcatraz, so why did they seem so surprised at the chaos of San Francisco? You can't get to Alcatraz without being on the wharf.

Ockler does a good job of captu More...

Anna, Frankie and Frankie’s older brother Matt grew up together. Anna had always looked up to him; always had a crush on him. What she didn’t know was he felt that he same way. When they finally do act on how they feel, you feel and enjoy the newness/sweetness of what they fell for each other. It doesn’t last because when Matt dies… Anna must be the strong one. For Frankie, for Matt’s parents, her own… but most especially for her self.

Sadly, I could not connect with the characters. Normally, I More...

3.5/4 stars

Twenty Boy Summer is the story of two best friends Anna and Frankie. They’ve practically grown up together and share everything with one another. Except for the fact that Anna has always been in love with Frankie’s brother Matt, just when Matt and Anna finally admitted their feelings for one another and were getting to spend more time with each other Matt tragically passed away. They had always planned to tell Frankie, but they just didn’t get the time. Now a year later with everyone More...

After reading Sarah Ockler’s “Twenty Boy Summer,” I feel like I’m 16 again, sunning on the beach, about to embark on an epic summer romance. OK, I’m definitely not 16, not even close, but my point is Ockler’s writing is so transportive I dare anyone to read her debut novel and not think they’re on a beach. I could literally smell coconut oil and pineapple shakes and salty sea air while reading. Summer and its attendant romances are infused in every single page of this simultaneously heartbreakin More...

SUPER SPOILER.

AH!
I was about 20 pages into a new book when this came in the mail, a few days late but still.
I saw the package, tore it open and examined. I thought the heart on the cover was made of paper bits, but as it turns out, it was glass shards.
So I read the inside flap. And just like that, I completely forgot the storyline inside those other 20 pages. I plunked myself down on my bed and started reading.

This book left me with a heart wrenching feeling. I wanted to cry at the beginning wh More...

I just finished the incredible Twenty Boy Summer, and I'm not quite sure how to begin to review it. Sarah Ockler has a stunning, moving, lyric turn of phrase--so very stunning, so very moving, that I found myself rereading whole passages to take the words in.

Anna, the main character, is so compelling and so so real...and her pain and joy and love and anger and sadness are all so palpably true that you can't help but marvel at how deftly and deeply Sarah has built this lovely character. You root More...

Jeez, the title does not do this book justice. At all. I can safely say I did not expect to choke up at the mere mention of cake frosting while reading a book entitled Twenty Boy Summer.

Don't let the title of this book fool you. This is an incredibly poignant and emotional story of love, loss and grief. Anna Reilly loses someone she loves and has to learn to let go and live life again, knowing that the person she lost will always be a part of her. She goes to California for a summer with her best friend's family and learns more about life and living in one summer than she has in her previous 16 years. The story is deep, with surprising revelations for a young adult novel. I put More...

**read an ARC of this**
anna and her neighbors, matt & frankie (francesca), have been best friends for as long as anna can remember. as anna grows up, her feelings for matt get stronger, and on her 15th birthday, matt returns those feelings when he kisses her after an adorable cake-fight.

but how to tell frankie, matt's sister? matt promises that he will take care of it on their family vacation to california, and matt and anna spend the next month sneaking out at night and stealing moments to More...

Here is my review posted on SLJ's blog Practically Paradise:

Spring Break is a wonderful time to read books beyond what I need to meet the daily needs of my middle-schoolers. I'm tackling this pile of more mature titles and books for high schoolers. Enter in Sarah Ockler's 20 Boy Summer which will be released in hardcover June, 2009 (Little Brown & Co., ISBN 978-0-316-05159-0, $16.99).

20 Boy Summer is a beautifully written story of love, friendship, summer romances, and dealing with grief. A More...

Twenty Boy Summer, It’s about a girl named Anna who had her first romance with her best friend’s, Frankie, Brother Matt. Yet Frankie had no idea. Anna and matt had deiced that telling Frankie they were together was a bad idea due to the reason that they were all close. Matt & Anna made a promise that Matt had to be the one to tell Frankie about them two on a family vacation. One day they went for ice cream, all three of them, in their way home they got in a accident. Matt died, Anna & Fr More...