Girls in Love by Hailey Abbott

It’s another summer in Pebble Beach, Maine for the extended Tuttle family and particularly cousins Jessica, Lara, and Greer. With this summer come new goals. Jessica wants to get closer to her boyfriend Connor, Lara wants to be more honest with the people she cares about, and Greer wants to find a trustworthy guy. But it wouldn’t be summer at Pebble Beach if there wasn’t some kind of romantic trouble. Jessica and Connor are in love, but Connor seems to be spending a lot of time with another girl. Lara thought she and Drew were over and starts dating someone else, but when Drew shows up again, Lara realizes that she doesn’t want to give either boy up. And lastly, Greer is having trouble trusting Hunter even though he vows he’s not playing games. Can the Tuttle cousins solve their drama in time for some summer fun?

Girls in Love has all of the romance, friendship spats, and overall drama of its prequel Summer Girls. However, while it’s still in good fun, it’s also starting to get old. I usually enjoy Abbott’s summery books as quick beach reads, but Girls in Love just wasn’t as good. Jessica, Lara, and Greer make such classic, clichéd, and stupid relationship mistakes, like dating multiple boys at once, not communicating, and being overly jealous and suspicious. It was just so obvious to me, as I’m sure it will be to other readers, that it was going to fall apart for each Tuttle girl. And then, once the main drama was all said and done, the round of forgiveness was too sickly sweet for my taste. The whole story of the Tuttle cousins having relationship woes, fighting amongst themselves, and them becoming BFFs again really isn’t that interesting the second time around.

I only recommend Girls in Love to readers who really enjoyed its prequel Summer Girls or need a quick guilty pleasure for a lazy day by the pool.

Rating: 3.0

Review copy from publisher Scholastic