Recently, I finished reading Sixteenth Summer by Michelle Dalton. Sixteenth Summer is a 305 page, fiction book. Currently on amazon.com it has 3.9 stars out of 5.  I read this book because it was by the same author as the last book I read. Also I thought it was going be the sequel to Fifteenth Summer but, it turned out to be a completely different story.

In Sixteenth Summer, the main character Anna, who lives in New York, is discomposed about another summer in New York, filled with tourist. To Anna every summer seams the same, spending time with friends, going to the beach, and eating ice cream. Her summer changes when she meets a boy named Will who is visiting New York with his parents for the summer. He and Will hit it off and soon what Anna thought was going to be a miserable summer is turning out to be filled with fun, exciting moments. Anna and Will spend a lot of sunny days together, but the days with Will are getting shorter rapidly, since Will has to head home at the end of August.Anna has never had feeling like she feels about Will. But with Will having to leave at the end of summer forever is not possible, it might not be worth the reality of a heartbreak.

I was surprised when I read this book because this book is structured just like Fifteen Summer. Yes, Fifteenth Summer  was a okay book, but, having the same structure I could tell what was going to happen at every moment. With the books being so similar, it made it hard to get through because there was not suspension. Suspension in a book is a big component. For me and many others it’s what keeps us reading the book which is why I am surprised that I even finished  reading it.

I liked the way the author included the author’s craft of short long. The short long made the text more interesting. It also made the book more of a puzzle. The author would say something really long about someone or something then would have a really short sentence which I read over several times to get what she meant.

If I where the author, I would have made the book less predictable. With the book’s plot of a love story everything happens exactly like a perfect fairy tail. The book did not have a lot of suspension. With a book being so predictable it is really easy to tell what is going to happen which makes the book boring. I would had had a judge plot twist with Will and Anna instead of making their time together all sunshine and rainbows.

Finally I was interested in the passage at the beginning where Anna is explaining how she feels about the Visitors in New York where Michael Dalton writes: “ What the “snobs” who invaded the island every summer tiptoed around our famously delicate dunes ( in there spotless , still-sporting-price-tag rubber shoes), I knew how to pick my way threw the long , fuzzy grass without crushing a single blade.(page1)”

The reason why I like that passage is because it highlights author’s craft. The author uses the whispering parentheses. By the author doing that it really brings out what Anna is feeling about the unwanted visitors in the summer. It gives the reader a sense of how she feels invaded by these visitors in the summer. I would give this book a 5 out of ten because it was really predictable.  

Sincerely,

Adrianna