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My Review:Title: 1983: Cruel Summer
Author: Amber Lynn Natusch
Series: Love in the 80s #4
Published by: Indie
Release Date: April 29, 2016
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 106
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2019 Beat the Backlist Challenge, Lenoreo's 2019 Monthly Motif Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER Summer Hunt
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon
My rating:
Blurb:From Amazon Bestselling Author Amber Lynn Natusch
Isadora Lancaster is in hell. She passed on a European vacation with her parents, choosing instead to spend an amazing summer with her boyfriend. But that plan changed when she walked in on him and another woman. Now Izzy’s stuck in a town she’s avoided since high school, and has to face uncomfortable truths about her past—including the best friend that abandoned her during their senior year. The boy that broke her heart.
"1982: Cruel Summer" is a stand-alone, new adult romance novella.
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Before the internet…before sext messages, selfies, like buttons, and d**k picks…epic loves and broken hearts played out offline, on mixtapes that became the self-made soundtracks of a generation.
Love in the 80s: A New Adult Mix is a collection of ten contemporary romance, new adult, stand-alone novellas set in the 1980s.
Written by award-winning and bestselling authors, one digital novella will be released on the last Friday of each month January - October in 2016.
The title of each love story will be a hit song from the year that the novella represents. The totally awesome authors include: Casey L. Bond, Lindy Zart, Cambria Hebert, Amber Lynn Natusch, Misty Provencher, Rebecca Yarros, Rachel Higginson, RK Ryals, Cameo Renae and Chelsea Fine.
Love in the 80s: A New Adult Mix was created by UTOPiAcon founder, Janet Wallace, and is co-produced with award-winning book cover designer, Regina Wamba (together they are WaWa Productions).
2.5 stars — I just didn’t connect with this one.
I couldn’t connect with either Izzy or Braxton, or their romance. I got some of the emotions and betrayals that Izzy felt, but I wasn’t a fan of having the past strung along throughout the book, told in chunks. It made it so that while I knew something bad had happened between Izzy and Braxton, because I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t trust that she didn’t overreact, or that there wasn’t a misunderstanding…which was sort of what happened. I found the conflict ended up feeling really contrived to me…I was looking for something more authentic, and less tropey I guess.
The writing style also didn’t work for me, it felt a bit flat in the end. And what I was searching for when picking this book to read was an 80s feel, and I didn’t get that AT ALL. Other than the lack of cell phones, there really wasn’t much to give me that 80s feel that I was hoping for. It ended up being very generic.
So yeah. Not for me. I finished it because it was short, and I could use it for a challenge (even if it didn’t give me the era feel I was hoping for).
COYER Summer Hunt: Read a book that takes place during the summer — 3 points.
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