3.5 ambivalent stars. (At some point I considered giving it 4, but for the reasons explained below I just can’t.)

This is a fluffy, lovely, comfortable story of first love (but not first boyfriend, which was different yet relatable), family relationships (including lots of hilarious and exasperating smol beans, which I’m always a sucker for), working parents, socioeconomic differences, coming-of-age... the list goes on. As you might guess, there are a lot of cliches (best friend is revealed to be toxic, she tries to give him her savings and it backfires, “we can’t be together because of [threat from third party],” etc, etc) — the last was particularly frustrating because it followed an actually interesting plot twist (which was really the main conflict, so it came into play a bit later than I would’ve expected).

There are some sweet moments, like the development of Samantha and Jase’s relationship (minus the aforementioned short-lived breakup and the awkwardness that was the First Time scene) and Tim’s character arc and most scenes with the kids all together; the slice-of-life summer idyll is for the most part what I love in my YA realistic fiction. But I saw the Nan subplot coming from a mile away (points for not trying to force resolution/closure there, though) and honestly, while this book is quite nice it doesn’t add much — in terms of original plot, memorable characters, or representation of any kind — to the genre.