Thursday, August 7, 2014

Review of The Summer of Jake by Rachel Bailey


Title/Author: The Summer of Jake by Rachel Bailey
Publisher/Date published: Entangled Publishing, Embrace, August 4th 2014
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley

Goodreads summary: Falling in love wasn’t part of the plan...

Life is just dandy for aspiring fashion designer Annalise Farley. She has a great job (or she will once her designs are discovered), parents who only slightly disapprove, a cat that thinks she’s a dog, and a best friend... even if she hasn’t seen her in a while. But then Jake Maxwell saunters back into her life. Jake, the love god. Jake, her best friend’s older brother. Jake, who broke her heart at sixteen without realizing it, then left to become a pro surfer. Now he’s back, having taken the surfing and business worlds by storm, and he’s ready for a new challenge — catching the eye of another girl. And he wants Annalise’s help. Helping Jake land his next girlfriend is too fraught with emotional danger for her liking, but then Jake offers to put her designs in his shops. Is that the sound of her life cracking at the seams? It’s hard to tell with Jake smiling at her like she’s the only thing that makes him happy...

I LOVE the best friend's older brother plot. Seriously. As a teenager I used to wish one of my friends had an older brother that I could fall in love with, but sadly, that never happened. So I live vicariously through stories like this.

I really liked Annalise! She has spunk and is a little quirky, with her car she named Mindy and her cat who thinks she's a dog and I liked it cause I could identify with her quirks. Plus, she's a badass fashion designer and I respect creative people. Also, she knows what she wants and knows what she DOESN'T want and I respected that she didn't want to be just another fling for Jake.

And Jake. Jake is kinda awesome and I probably would have fallen for him as well if he'd been one of my friends' older brother or basically just walking by. He's a bit clueless when it comes to women and his own heart and has ISSUES because of his dad and I just wanted to shake him at one point because he was acting like an idiot and just UGH! But it made for some beautiful tension and it made the happy ending all the sweeter, so it all worked out in the end.

So Annalise and Jake definitely had chemistry and I loved seeing them grow closer and felt like they truly had a solid basis for their relationship. And they were surrounded by a lovely family, Jake's sister and mother are wonderful and loving and just my kind of people.
The one thing that I was a teensy bit iffy about is that Jake goes to Annalise to get fashion advise because he's trying to get together with a woman, but he doesn't seem all that interested in her at all, so it felt a bit off that he would go to such lengths to get her and never feel like he's all that into her. But other than that I was happy with this fluffy romance!

My rating: 4,5 stars

1 comment:

  1. You totally sold me on the fluffy romance!! :) Also, I love surfing books!! Well, I love Starfish Sister which is all about surfing and I'm intrigued to read another book with a mc that surfs! :D

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