Cruel Summer

Season of Revenge Series, Book 2

De: Morgan Elizabeth

Narrado por: Wesleigh Siobhan, Lance Greenfield

Camile Thompson loves three things: her best friends Kat and Abbie, planning events, and getting revenge.

When she starts her dream job at the elite Long Beach Island Beach Club, she makes a pact with her besties: For the first time in ten years, she'll try to be more open and make friends. No cutting people off for minor infractions, no closing herself off, and absolutely no tests to prove loyalty.

When Cami strikes up a friendship with her intern Olivia, it's anything but smooth sailing when the mean girls of the Beach Club show up. They love making people miserable, and they have their sights set on Cami.

Cami quickly slips back into her old ways of petty payback. The only ally she seems to be able to tolerate is the hot bartender who works across the street.

But when his Beach Club connections come to light, Cami realizes this may be the cruelest summer ever.

©2023 Morgan Elizabeth (P)2024 Podium Audio

Wish they would have chosen a different voice actor.

I really loved Tis the Season but this book didn’t quite live up to the last. The story was good enough but just didn’t seem to fully pull me in. The female voice actor was wonderful but the male sounded like he was AI generated.

Way to sink to their level

Revenge hijinks are adorable among kids (Parent Trap), silly among teens (Mean Girls), and snarky among YAs (What a Girl Wants), but with 28 year old Cami and her foes, it was more cringe than cute. What made this story better than most in this series was that Cami was a force to be reckoned with. Compared to her BFF Abby from book 1, Cami had business smarts and mean girl smarts and her HEA didn’t happen because 45 year old Zach took the reins and solved her problems.

Random things that I liked included: 1) Cami is black but race is not the conflict (indeed, its never commented upon, it just is, and I appreciate that), 2) the revenge bits on Cami’s end weren’t permanent or dangerous, helping me embrace the comedy, and 3) the characters were more balanced (in particular, Olivia and Zach had more depth and complexity).

The inner monologues still ran annoyingly long (and although Cami is a stronger FMC, her monologue was stuck on insecurity repeat). The sex was still rather graphic and played the same (especially the “mine” caveman talk and the part where he licked her “from entrance to cl”), albeit with a slight tweak (here, it’s making videos, which, eew). But, this was my favorite of the five books.