Title: The Summer I Wasn't Me
Author: Jessica Verdi
Series: Standalone
Genre: YA Contemporary, LGBT
Format: Paperback, 352 pages
Release Date: April 1st 2014
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Source: ARC received by publisher in exchange for an honest review

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Lexi has a secret.

She never meant for her mom to find out. And now she's afraid that what's left of her family is going to fall apart for good.

Lexi knows she can fix everything. She can change. She can learn to like boys. New Horizons summer camp has promised to transform her life, and there's nothing she wants more than to start over.

But sometimes love has its own path...


As I have said before, I am not a religious person at all. And I am the type of person to get very annoyed if you dump a religion on my lap and expect me to believe it. So when I saw what The Summer I Wasn't Me was about I knew I was intrigued but I was wary about the religious aspect of the story. But I thought I would give it a try anyway and you never know, it may surprise me. And wow did it ever. I loved this book from the moment Lexi started to narrate her story.

Lexi is gay, and has know for a very long time, but when her mother finds out she sends her to a transformation camp called New Horizons where they claim to be able to change those who suffer from homosexuality. What I think I loved the most about this book was Lexi's devotion to her mother and even though she doesn't believe in New Horizons or what they are doing, she believes that if she goes she will help her mother cope with everything. Although I didn't agree with what Lexi was doing, lying to her mother and to the people at New Horizons, I loved that she loved her mother enough to try and change herself to make her happy.

Jessica Verdi has a way of making all her characters relateable and this book is no different. Lexi was a character I got behind immediately and I knew I was emotionally invested from the very first page. But then there are the secondary characters that Lexi meets at New Horizons. It is these characters that change the book, and for the better. These characters make Lexi remember that who she is, is not something to be changed but something to be embraced. And I loved that these characters were not just there to advance the plot, they had their own merit and had their own storyline away from Lexi and the camp.

The end of this book was not wrapped in a tidy bow and everything was back to the way t should be and I loved that. Nothing in life turns out perfect and I loved that this story was realistic enough to showcase that. I was very happy with the way it ended, it was vague yet satisfying and I could not have asked for a better way to end a great story.