jrhess1's review
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
ashbear's review
5.0
Not to be dramatic but this book may have just changed my entire life. There’s now a clear line between my life before I read this book and after. I loved Nora Goes Off Script but Same Time Next Summer is phenomenal. Monaghan has a profound superpower of creating extremely relatable characters that you find yourself deeply attached to by the end. I loved Sam and her journey throughout this book. If you’re feeling lost, if you feel like you haven’t been yourself, if you feel like you need to remind yourself of who are, read this book.
Same Time Next Summer is without a doubt a romance book but not to the point where it outshined Sam and pulled away from her own story. Same Time Next Summer made me feel a way I haven’t in a long time and leaves me so hopeful for this new year where I can be whoever I want to be and be who I am. Sam, I am.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Same Time Next Summer is without a doubt a romance book but not to the point where it outshined Sam and pulled away from her own story. Same Time Next Summer made me feel a way I haven’t in a long time and leaves me so hopeful for this new year where I can be whoever I want to be and be who I am. Sam, I am.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
nikkilking's review
4.0
The title sucked me in immediately. To know it was possibly about a reconnected lost love situation made it even better. Some of the story was frustrating but it’s only because I was able to connect so strongly with the characters. We don’t really get to know Wyatt a ton which was disappointing but I still loved this book. A perfect summer read.
downtown_kb's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I received an ARC from NetGalley of this which I was thrilled about.
Nora Goes Off Script was one of my favorite reads last year.
This solidifies A.M. as an autoread for me. I finished this in one sitting.
This isn’t necessarily an original story set-up: girl spends her childhood summers at a beach, girl falls in love with boy, life happens, and they come back to said beach as adults to discover maybe it really wasn’t that long ago. However, A.M. made this story her own and I fell in love with her characters.
I love how she writes. It is somehow atmospheric and humorous with a subtle dry wit. It captured the feelings of summers on the beach so vividly. Her characters feel real and her drama feels real. There are no contrived scenarios. Her conflict and resolution just happen without too much fanfare and it feels so human. This one was more angsty than her last one but I feel second chance romances are. Told with a bit of dual POV and flashbacks to childhood summers, this story was captivating.
If you liked her last book or you like Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation, this needs to go on your TBR.
If you liked her last book or you like Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation, this needs to go on your TBR.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness
skiessling's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book is such a cute, summer story! It gives strong summer vibes, and is a perfect beach read. The way the story was told really brought me into the beach setting and made me feel like I was there with the characters. This story offered a lot of reflection on being true to yourself by way of the main character, Sam, learning how to chase what she really wants from life. I enjoyed how the story flipped between then and now and offered both Sam and Wyatt’s POVs, but I would’ve loved more from Wyatt’s side. Overall this was a sweet book about high school lovers finding their way back to each other!
Thank you to Net Galley, the author, and publisher for this ARC!
Thank you to Net Galley, the author, and publisher for this ARC!
raemaras's review
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
kspoonerfish's review
4.0
I loved Annabelle Monaghan’s 2022 release, Nora Goes Off Script, so I was excited to read her new romance, Same Time Next Summer. STNS is a second chance romance about Samantha (Sam) and Wyatt who grew up spending summers together at Long Island Beach. It comes out in June 2023.
When the story begins, Sam is bringing Jack, her fiancé, to her family’s beach house to look at a wedding venue. Sam has been asked by the HR Consulting firm she works for to take some time off after she causes a disaster. Sam thinks she might lose her job and I wondered what she did that caused this to happen. I will only say that it involved a flash mob and made me laugh. Jack is a successful doctor, the perfect fiancé, and very set in his routines. Sam feels safe in the life she has with Jack. Their apartment is gray, white and chrome. Jack wants a white cake, white invitations and white linens for the wedding. Sam worries about what Jack will think of her family’s beach house that is overflowing with art and craft projects (her parents are artists).
The story alternates between past and present and we begin to discover more about Sam and Wyatt’s early relationship as teens when they first fell in love. Their special place was a treehouse in Wyatt’s back yard overlooking the beach. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened to break them apart. After their break-up, Sam spent her senior year recovering with help from her family and a counselor. Wyatt struggled with dyslexia and went to a boarding school where a kind counselor gave him a guitar and signed him up for guitar lessons. After graduation, Wyatt went to Hollywood to break into the music business and worked on cars at a gas station while playing at different gigs at night. We saw how lost and hurt they both were and how they worked their way through it.
Wyatt is at the beach organizing a music festival. Sam hears him playing guitar in the treehouse and finally gets the courage to talk with him about their break up 12 years earlier. It is fun to watch Sam and Wyatt become friends again and to watch Sam find herself and become more free and happy in her life. It was sweet to hear about her new job at the library working with kids on art projects.
What held this book back for me was I felt like we learned the bare minimum about Wyatt’s life and it felt like the story ended abruptly. I would have liked to have seen more of their HEA.
This book was a great beach read and I felt like I could hear and smell the ocean as they enjoyed surfing, swimming and sharing meals and music with each other.
When the story begins, Sam is bringing Jack, her fiancé, to her family’s beach house to look at a wedding venue. Sam has been asked by the HR Consulting firm she works for to take some time off after she causes a disaster. Sam thinks she might lose her job and I wondered what she did that caused this to happen. I will only say that it involved a flash mob and made me laugh. Jack is a successful doctor, the perfect fiancé, and very set in his routines. Sam feels safe in the life she has with Jack. Their apartment is gray, white and chrome. Jack wants a white cake, white invitations and white linens for the wedding. Sam worries about what Jack will think of her family’s beach house that is overflowing with art and craft projects (her parents are artists).
The story alternates between past and present and we begin to discover more about Sam and Wyatt’s early relationship as teens when they first fell in love. Their special place was a treehouse in Wyatt’s back yard overlooking the beach. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened to break them apart. After their break-up, Sam spent her senior year recovering with help from her family and a counselor. Wyatt struggled with dyslexia and went to a boarding school where a kind counselor gave him a guitar and signed him up for guitar lessons. After graduation, Wyatt went to Hollywood to break into the music business and worked on cars at a gas station while playing at different gigs at night. We saw how lost and hurt they both were and how they worked their way through it.
Wyatt is at the beach organizing a music festival. Sam hears him playing guitar in the treehouse and finally gets the courage to talk with him about their break up 12 years earlier. It is fun to watch Sam and Wyatt become friends again and to watch Sam find herself and become more free and happy in her life. It was sweet to hear about her new job at the library working with kids on art projects.
What held this book back for me was I felt like we learned the bare minimum about Wyatt’s life and it felt like the story ended abruptly. I would have liked to have seen more of their HEA.
This book was a great beach read and I felt like I could hear and smell the ocean as they enjoyed surfing, swimming and sharing meals and music with each other.
aislinnrs19's review
4.0
3.5 Stars Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan was a great follow-up to her 2022 hit, Nora Goes Off Script. 30-year-old Sam Holloway has returned to the beach house on Long Island where she spent every summer growing up, but she’s barely been back since her first love, Wyatt Pope, broke her heart thirteen years prior. Sam is with her successful dermatologist fiancée, Jack, checking out a wedding venue near the beach house. When she spots Wyatt again for the first time since they broke up, it feels like time has stopped and her heart has cracked open again, since she never got over her heartbreak. Sam still feels a connection to Wyatt and begins to question if she’s really living her life authentically.
The story has an alternating timeline and alternating POVs, showing Sam’s and Wyatt’s perspectives in both the present and the past. It reminded me a lot of Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After, but without so much of the teen angst. This felt like a good beach read; it was simple, sweet, and easy to breeze through in one sitting. Overall, I enjoyed it and look forward to seeing what Monaghan writes next!
The story has an alternating timeline and alternating POVs, showing Sam’s and Wyatt’s perspectives in both the present and the past. It reminded me a lot of Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After, but without so much of the teen angst. This felt like a good beach read; it was simple, sweet, and easy to breeze through in one sitting. Overall, I enjoyed it and look forward to seeing what Monaghan writes next!
chloeisabellereadsbooks's review
4.0
I genuinely enjoyed Same Time Next Summer. This friends-to-lovers second chance romance was the perfect read. The last line of the book really stuck with me and is all I can think about. Although I wish there had been more of an epilogue or more chapters once Sam and Wyatt were back together. Overall really enjoyed this romance.
juliek15's review
3.0
I could not put this book down! I read it in less than a day and whenever I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it. I enjoyed the progression of the story and finding out how the relationship between Wyatt and Sam began and abruptly came to an end when they were teenagers. I feel like Sam's heartbreak was very real and I could understand how that eventually led her to start dating Jack years later. It pained me that there was so much wasted time between Wyatt and Sam but I am glad they were able to make amends. I felt like the ending was slightly abrupt--I turned the last page expecting there to be more. Alas, I still really loved this book and feel like this will be such a good beach read next summer! It is definitely a book I will recommend to my friends.