When I Was Summer - JB Howard

When I Was Summer by JB Howard
Genre: J/YA Realistic Fiction

Blurb (on back of book): A relatable novel about unrequited love, rock ’n’ roll, and what you find when you go searching for yourself.
Sixteen-year-old Nora Wakelin has always felt like an outsider in her own family. Her parents and older sister love her, but they don’t understand anything about her: not her passion for music, not her all-encompassing crush on her bandmate Daniel (who is very much unavailable), not her recklessness and impulsiveness. Nora has always imagined that her biological mother might somehow provide the answer as to why she feels like such an outsider.
Through internet stalking and leaps of logic, Nora identifies three women living elsewhere in California who seem like they could be her mother. So she sets out to track them each down, one by one, under the pretense of a statewide tour with her rock band, Blue Miles. Three cities, three gigs, three possible birth mothers—it sounds so easy.
But once they’re on the road, of course, it’s anything but easy. Nora wants to be with Daniel, she wants to find her birth mother, she wants to keep her parents happy, she wants the band to stay together, and she wants to know why she is the way she is. But she won’t be the first musician to find out that, while you can’t always get what you want, sometimes you get what you need.

MY OPINION: ***

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is set to release pretty soon and I'm excited to hear other opinions about it! I feel like I had fairly high expectations, which is unusual for me and ARCs because it's so close to its release.

Nora lives by music. She's in a band called Blue Miles with her three friends, Daniel, Cameron, and Flynn. She has a crush on Daniel but he's madly in love with his on-again, off-again girlfriend Darcy (who was honestly AWFUL). They embark on their first tour with the ultimate destination of the Magwitch, an amazing venue in good ol' San Francisco to sing with a HUGE band. Nora has received some clues about where her birth mother could be located and throughout the tour, they stop in places where she thinks she might find her mother (with the help of some fairly-deep and sorta-realistic sleuthing).

The ending of this book is bittersweet and may not please readers (I was not entirely happy with it). However, the book sends readers on a wild ride with characters, romance, music, and the question of family and finding those who you belong to. I feel as if everybody has had some experience with not fitting in: Nora has never fit in with her Stanford-headed adopted family, which I think really helps her want to find her birth mother. Although her family is really good to her and helps her, she constantly talks about the fact that nobody understands her musical language.

Her actual family is honestly a mess with fathers all over the place. It's a little bit crazy but I mean, I guess all families have a little mess in them. Nora learns that her mother initially called her Summer and I think that after a while, we understand that Nora and Summer are basically two different people, hence the title.

I would recommend this book to readers looking for a middle-grade/young-adult novel about finding friends, love, and family.

Main Character: Nora
Sidekick(s): Daniel, Flynn, Cameron, etc
Villain(s): Misunderstandings, family, etc
Realistic Fiction Elements: This book is all very real to life.