WHEN SUMMER ENDS

At a crossroads before senior year, Olivia and Aiden find hope and new directions while spending the summer working together near Lake Michigan.

Bringing the small-town Michigan setting evocatively to the forefront, Pennington’s (Love Songs & Other Lies, 2018) sophomore novel captures the pleasures of new love. Told from dual first-person perspectives, the novel follows Olivia—who is reeling from her first breakup from serious boyfriend Zander; not getting a hoped-for writing job; and learning she soon has to move to Arizona—and local star pitcher Aiden, her co-worker at his family’s vacation boat rental store. Aiden has recently quit the baseball team (much to the dismay of his school and community) due to a vision impairment, and he hopes to pursue his passion for art. Surrounded by the rivers, lake, and sand dunes, this unlikely match (Zander was Aiden’s catcher) intrepidly explore new possibilities in life and love together. Aiden’s loss of vision is problematically never medically explained or fully contextualized and is used more as an inconsistent plot device rather than rounding out his characterization or offering readers true representation. Easier to overlook are some loose plot threads left untethered. All main characters are assumed white.

Despite hitting a few sandbars, fans of summer love will stay adrift in this outdoorsy romance.