The Summer of Secrets

My Along recently stole* a few new books so now I have a queue of books waiting for me to read. I’m quite excited about all those books because my interest in reading is back, maybe it’s because at the moment I can’t stop writing so in a way that re-ignite my reading habit.

Out of those books, there were two that really caught my eyes. One of them was ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ by Khaled Hosseini who previously wrote ‘The Kite Runner’. I haven’t read ‘The Kite Runner’ but heard good things about it so naturally it made me want to read ‘A Thousands Splendid Sun’. But I said there were two books, the other one was ‘The Summer of Secrets’, and I chose to read that first despite not knowing anything about the author.

‘The Summer of Secrets’, by Martina Reily, with a pleasing cover just seemed to be the lighter readings out of those two, that’s why I decided to read it first. It told the story of three friends, Hope, Julie & Adam, who live in London and how turn of events led them to a holiday at Hope’s hometown in Ireland, a place called Dunport. There, their friendship got closer than ever as they revealed their secrets to each other. The story was told from Hope’s point of view, her traumas, her problematic relationship with her mum and her dark past, and that somehow brought the best out of her friends.

What I like about the book is as usual the light, easy language used. That is most important to me. If I found the words ‘thee’ & ‘thy’ in the book I’m reading, I will throw it away.

The author also injects a lot of humour and clever dialogs & banters all through out. I laughed a lot reading this book, from the start right to the end because the jokes and banters were fresh and original. Also the characters were realistic, and I can relate to them, especially Adam and Logan (another main character in the book).

My favourite part of the book was when the three of them went to have lunch with the much feared, Julie’s Dad. It was hilarious with Adam had to put on his brave face and thick skin just to try to actually be part of the lunch itself.

And I like the ending part of the book where Hope had to do the things she meant to do. Clearly the author put plenty of effort in there and she did it really, really well. I have a feeling that she actually wrote the ending first before writing the rest of the book. This is one of those books where the ending was predictable and clear from the very start, so that just make the work harder for the author. But like I said she did it well and surely many readers will cry at the ending.

I’m definitely recommending this book to everyone. Go and read it!

* Yes, my along steals books! It’s her bad habit. She makes lots of money but still steals. Don’t ask me, I can’t understand it as well!