Book Review: Be True To Me

A summer filled with a house on a private island, lazy days laying out in the sun and sundresses for dinner at the club is exactly what Jean’s summer has been for every year as long as she can remember, but this year it was going to be different, her older (perfect) sister is going overseas and Jean might just have found the perfect summer love, in her godfather’s visiting nephew. She’ll be out from underneath her sister’s shadow and can forget the humiliation of losing the Fire Island tennis championship last year to an outsider.
The outsider is Fritz, army brat and tennis extraordinaire and although she’s been coming to Fire Island every summer, she knows very well that she doesn’t belong with these families. She spends the summer with her best friend, Julia and this year her thoughts are focused on forgetting about her ex-boyfriend and going back to a place that has been the one constant in her life for the past few years.

But when Fritz falls for Jean’s love interest their competition heats up as the summer commences with each decision the girls make lead to higher and higher stakes. I was definitely expecting the story to go in one direction and was very surprised when it didn’t, but similarly to We Were Liars by E. Lockhart it throws you for a loop at the end that I honestly didn’t see coming and has been circling in my brain every since.

This is a great summer read with the perfect backdrop of a summer house on an island for elite families with activities all day long, dinner at the club and the burning desire of a first love. Told in alternating chapters narrated by Jean and Fritz, this story of the summer of the Bicentennial is sure to be one you can’t put down and won’t soon forget.

Twitter Booktalk (140 characters or less): The Bicentennial summer explodes with fireworks for Jean and Fritz – 2 girls in love w/ the same boy and both feeling like they don’t fit in

Title: Be True to Me
Author: Adele Griffin
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
Publication Date: June 13, 2017
Page Number: 329 pgs.