Summer in Sand Lake isn’t complete without a trip to Meade Creamery—the local ice cream stand founded in 1944 by Molly Meade who started making ice cream to cheer up her lovesick girlfriends while all the boys were away at war. Since then, the stand has been owned and managed exclusively by local girls, who inevitably become the best of friends.
GENRE:
Young Adult, Contemporary
PAGES:
368 pages
PART OF A SERIES?:
Standalone Novel
RELEASE DATE:
April 24th 2018
YOU CAN FIND THE BOOK AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR THE FOLLOWING LINKS:
GOODREADS SUMMARY:
Summer in Sand Lake isn’t complete without a trip to Meade Creamery—the local ice cream stand founded in 1944 by Molly Meade who started making ice cream to cheer up her lovesick girlfriends while all the boys were away at war. Since then, the stand has been owned and managed exclusively by local girls, who inevitably become the best of friends. Seventeen-year-old Amelia and her best friend Cate have worked at the stand every summer for the past three years, and Amelia is “Head Girl” at the stand this summer. When Molly passes away before Amelia even has her first day in charge, Amelia isn’t sure that the stand can go on. That is, until Molly’s grandnephew Grady arrives and asks Amelia to stay on to help continue the business…but Grady’s got some changes in mind…
MY REVIEW
I LOVED THIS BOOK! When it comes to contemporary fiction, I do love a good summer novel. There’s just something so open and fun and…possible about the idea of summer. I am typing this as I sweat off about ten pounds in my lack of AC house in the middle of July in Southern California but really, its so true. Summer is always that idea of possibility, especially when you’re young. Three months of no school, no homework, the days are longer, and everything just feels so much MORE. Plus its about ice cream and I can’t really have ice cream anymore and that makes me sad so I was ready to dive into this novel. This is exactly the kind of book that is perfect for a summer read. It has everything that summer is: warm weather, days at the beach, cute boys, fun times with friends and bad times too, and, of course, ice cream.
What I found was such a fun summer story with some kickass female characters, in both the present and the past. This book is full of feminism and hardworking ladies and there’s something really great about that. The love that Amelia has for this job and how much dedication she has toward it is really inspiring. I love how hard she works to figure out how to keep the business going and how she is desperate to figure out the recipes that Molly left behind. I love that it gives legitimacy to owning a small business and that it doesn’t necessarily preach the big dreams sort of route. I love that the big dream for Amelia is to continue the legacy of someone like Molly Meade, who she admired very very much.
The only very very small issue I had with it was the romance in it. I was fully prepared for a full girl power story and for some reason, I just didn’t buy the romance between Amelia and Grady that much. It felt sometimes that Grady just got in the way of Amelia being a Meade girl and that she did a lot of the work for him. That was just a personal thing that bothered me. I didn’t mind Grady so much as a character but I would have been okay without the romance – and I adore romance, especially in summer books. It just felt like it pulled away from Amelia and her friends and Meade Creamery and those were the things that I cared about. Luckily, most of the book focuses on them, and on the story of Molly and her ice cream stand, and that is what makes this book as deliciously awesome as it is. I’m a very very proud owner of a Meade Creamery shirt and I am so so glad.
RATING:
4.5 out of 5 Stars
