Title: Taming Chloe Summers
Author: Anna Katmore
Release date: June 21st, 2016
Synopsis
CHLOE:
Camp sucks.
I should be on a plane to London, heading into an epic second year of college. Instead, I’m stuck on Frog Pond Mountain, tasked with supervising a horde of pubescent teens, all because I had some minor run-ins with the law.
But I came here with a plan: next weekend, I’m escaping from the boondocks and swindling my way back into civilization.
Unfortunately, my brilliant plan B couldn’t foresee one tiny detail: Justin Andrews, alpha to the wolves and drool-worthy ghost from my past…
JUSTIN:
I can’t believe Chloe Summers is going to be my co-counselor at camp this year. We haven’t talked in years, and we wouldn’t for the rest of our lives if I had anything to do with it.
But I can’t get out of this summer job. Since I’m stuck with her for the next few weeks, I might as well use the time to get back at her for what she did all those years ago. I mean, camp is supposed to be fun, right? And this could be fun indeed.
But what if a harmless game unexpectedly turns into something more serious?
Taming Chloe Summers by Anna Katmore [Book Review]
New book boyfriend alert!
Also, attention Ryan Hunter, you’ve got a competition!
From Young Adult to New Adult
The first thing I realised while reading the book is that Taming Chloe Summer is the NA of the Grover Beach Team series. Honestly, Anna Katmore did so well in transitioning the series from YA to NA. I’m not sure if we’ll get more books for the series but if this was meant to be an introduction to the adult life of the kids from the Grover Beach Team, I’m all for it.
Given that the settings of the book are after high school, the transition feels really natural. I think what makes this book a great transition for this series is the character development. If you’ve been reading this series and you pick up this one, you’ll see that both Chloe and Justin are no longer the high school students we met in the previous books. Although we don’t actually get to see the different sides of these two, somehow you can just see that they both have matured.
Storyline
In terms of storyline, it’s what you can expect from a YA/NA romance novel. This one definitely focuses a lot on Justin and Chloe’s relationship and how their romance developed. Maybe it’s due to the settings, given that these two are in a summer camp together, we clearly didn’t get to see much of their other friends and family. I think that contributes to making this story all about their relationship; how they mend it and moved forward.
I have to say that Anna Katmore did a good job of keeping the mystery and making us keep reading the book to find out what the secrets are. That definitely what makes me keeps on turning the pages as well.
This book has many entertaining parts. The majority comes from Justin and Chloe but the side characters also provide us with amusing situations. Greyson and Julie definitely make everything more interesting and funny. Thank God for these two!
The Characters and Their Romance
I am not a fan of Chloe. However, I had a hunch that she would have her chance of redeeming herself. When Anna Katmore announced that she will be the lead in the new book, I was excited to see how the story going to unfold.
Like I said before, we didn’t get to see the different sides of Chloe and Justin in the previous books so I was ready to see more of Chloe. To see if she’s changed and if we’d get to know why she was awful to a lot of people in the previous books. And spoiler alert; we got the answer to all of this.
The pairing though is SUPER UNEXPECTED. I was very eager to read it because I want to see how the dynamic between these two would be. As far as I can remember, the two didn’t interact much in the previous book. Again, spoiler alert; you’ll know why in this book.
The only thing I know about Justin is that he is best friends with Ryan Hunter from the first book in this series and he rides bikes. Clearly, I know nothing about him. In this book though, he is very likeable. He’s a natural leader, he’s kind, and he’s funny.
When the story begins to unfold and we learned more about these two, I really can’t stop reading. I want to know what happened between them in the past, I want to know what’s going to happen to them now.
I LOVE THIS NEW CHLOE. She’s no longer the shallow girl I remember from the previous books. She learned from her mistake and moved on. The times when she acts like a bitch is her mask, to show everyone that she’s tough and untouchable. However, my favourite side of her is when she’s being vulnerable. Simply because I feel like you learn more about her during those moments.
I LOVE JUSTIN. Because he knows the real Chloe and tried his best to bring the real her to the surface. There are moments where his method is a bit too much, but at the end of the day, you can tell that his feelings for Chloe is really strong and he wished to see more of the girl he fell in love with all those years ago.
These two are good together. They’ve got chemistry and they have strong feelings about each other. I love it whenever the two of them opened up to each other. I think these moments between the two are what makes their relationship so swoony. My heart actually flutters every time they got together. Honestly, it’s been a while since any romance in any book did that to me.
Anna Katmore definitely did a great job in bringing secondary characters to the forefront and give them more depth.
What’s Next?
I have a feeling that this book would be the last one where we’d get to meet the Grover Beach Students and that’s kind of bittersweet because I LOVE THE SERIES and of course I’m attached to the characters in the series. But I have to say that if this book is really the last one, it is definitely a great ending to the series. It gives closure and everyone got what they deserved.
So, Anna Katmore, thank you for writing such beautiful series!
Have you read any of this series? If you are looking for a light and adorable YA series, give Grover Beach Team a read. I hope you’ll fall in love with the stories and the characters as much as I do! Also, you can read this book as a standalone.
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