Review: Nantucket Blue by Leila Howland

Nantucket Blue by Leila Howland 

Published: May 7, 2013

Format: ARC via publisher

Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Challenges: 2014 TBR Pile

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

For Cricket Thompson, a summer like this one will change everything. A summer spent on Nantucket with her best friend, Jules Clayton, and the indomitable Clayton family. A summer when she'll make the almost unattainable Jay Logan hers. A summer to surpass all dreams.

Some of this turns out to be true. Some of it doesn't.

When Jules and her family suffer a devastating tragedy that forces the girls apart, Jules becomes a stranger whom Cricket wonders whether she ever really knew. And instead of lying on the beach working on her caramel-colored tan, Cricket is making beds and cleaning bathrooms to support herself in paradise for the summer.

But it's the things Cricket hadn't counted on--most of all, falling hard for someone who should be completely off-limits--that turn her dreams into an exhilarating, bittersweet reality.

A beautiful future is within her grasp, and Cricket must find the grace to embrace it. If she does, her life could be the perfect shade of Nantucket blue.

My Thoughts

I don’t know why it took me almost a whole year to read this wonderful book when I had the ARC for the longest. If I had known what a picturesque summer novel this was I would’ve read it sooner.  Just love how Leila Howland paints the perfect New England summer picture, I feel like I’m right there.

Nantucket Blue is the story of Cricket and her summer while working in Nantucket. She was originally supposed to spend it with her best friend Jules and her family. However just before they were to leave Jules’s mother unexpectedly dies. Of course Jules isn’t herself and for some reason decides to push Cricket aside and wants to deal with this by herself for the summer.

Now this is where I don’t get why Cricket doesn’t listen to her and decides to go to Nantucket anyway. Jules has made it clear she doesn’t want her there and when Cricket shows up isn’t very pleasant to her. Yeah I get Jules is mourning her mom and everyone deals with death in their way but she’s being a tad mean and a borderline bitch. Cricket wonders if she even knows who her best friend really is. This person she has become isn’t the one Cricket has known all her life.

In the meantime Cricket whose other main reason for going to island for the summer, her high school crush Jay decided he didn’t want anything to do with her after he heard something she said about his family. So Cricket is left by herself alone with no one until one day she sees Jules’s younger brother Zack. It doesn’t take long before Cricket doesn’t see him as just her best friends brother but as real guy. There is MAJOR flirting these two and soon a summer romance blossoms. While she feels bad for hiding her secret she can’t help but to truly fall for Zack, she knows when Jules finds out it won’t be good.

Is this the real thing between Cricket and Zack? Time will tell when they get back home. Or just a summer fling? Will she get her best friend back or will this just tear them further away? I won’t give the whole story completely away but I will say this is one book that is an ultimate summer beach read. So do yourself a favor and get this if you haven’t already. Oh and also while you’re at it get the follow up, Nantucket Red it will be coming out May 13, 2014. Keep an eye out I will reviewing that one soon, I can’t wait to see how it all plays out.

BOTTOM LINE...