Review of Same Time Next Summer

I loved Nora Goes Off Script by this author and added it to my Celebrity Romance list. What did I think about this follow-up? Check out my Review of Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan!

Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan

Published on June 6, 2023 by Putnam. Thanks so much to the publisher for the advance copy for review.

Plot Summary of Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan

Sam has the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack (his strict routines are a good thing, really), a great job in Manhattan (unless they fire her), and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family’s Long Island beach house.

Yet the minute she arrives at the beach, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. But there’s no reason for a thirty-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was seventeen. Right?

Now she’s back at this beach, hearing notes from Wyatt’s guitar float across the night air from next door as if no time has passed. am’s memories come flooding back: the feel of Wyatt’s skin on hers, their nights in the treehouse, and the truth behind their split.

Sam remembers who she used to be, and as Wyatt reenters her life their connection is as undeniable as it always was. She will have to make a choice.

Other Books by Annabel Monaghan

Annabel Monaghan started out writing YA, and I started out reviewing YA, so reading her adult books has been a fun trip down memory lane for me.

Monaghan started out in 2012 with YA thriller called A Girl Named Digit and followed that with Double Digit (2014). She published a book of essays called Does This Volvo Make My Butt Look Big, in 2016.

Then, in 2022, she followed a trend that I’ve been meaning to write about: YA authors shifting over into adult romance. She published Nora Goes Off Script, a book I recently read as I was updating a post on Celebrity Romance. I loved that book so much that I decided to request this one.

In 2024, she added Summer Romance to her list, and I loved it!

Review of Same Time Next Summer

First off, I consider romance a tricky genre to review. So much of romance reading is personal preference.

Romance books are like food: yes, most of us love food but feel passionately about our favorites. What spice level do you prefer? Are you a cilantro lover or hater? Do you think a burger is the best food ever invented, or the villain behind heart disease and global warming? And so on.

Nora Goes Off Script had ALL my favorite tropes: a prickly, imperfect heroine who isn’t looking for love, a small town setting, truly hilarious best friends. Okay, there was a major “problem that could have been solved by a conversation” but nothing is perfect.

I did enjoy reading Same Time Next Summer, but it was filled with tropes that are really not my favorite. There’s a love triangle. The main character is a bit wishy-washy (actually she’s conflict-avoidant like me, which is hard to read) and gets pushed around by basically everyone. Jack, her fiancé, loves routine and lists (also me!) and is considered a boring stick-in-the-mud. Rude!

Same Time Next Summer reminded me a lot of Sleepless in Seattle, with Sam being Meg Ryan and Jack being Bill Pullman. Bill’s character Walter had allergies and sat around being a nice guy while Meg went off and chased after Tom Hanks. Walter got a hilarious defense in Vulture:

“Walter may be the quintessential example of the nice, onscreen dull guy who gets dumped for someone more equipped to light a female protagonist’s fire. For more examples of this trope, see … James Marsden in The Notebook … and Superman Returns … and, also, Enchanted. Honestly, it’s amazing how much Marsden got rejected in the mid-2000s.”

Then a reviewer friend on Instagram said that Same Time Next Summer reminded her of The Summer I Turned Pretty (on my list of Best Free Rom Coms on Amazon Prime) and that comment kind of blew my mind.

YES, in that both The Summer I Turned Pretty and Same Time Next Summer both had 1) a beach town setting, 2) a love triangle 3) a main character is living with her parents during the events in the present and 4) a main character falling love as a teen. (Same Time Next Summer had flashbacks to Sam and Wyatt’s teenage relationship back in the 2010s.)

In that sense, Same Time Next Summer did have much more of a YA feel than Nora Goes Off Script. This might be a positive for some readers and a negative for others.

The love triangle wasn’t the worst, because it’s SO obvious that poor Jack is getting dumped (advantage to reviewing romance: the ending is never a spoiler.) But the book spends a lot of time with Sam and Jack discussing their wedding, which they are planning as the book takes place.

As in Nora Goes Off Script, the conflict that keeps the couple apart in Same Time Next Summer is … a bit weird. I understood how that happened in the present, but since this conflict had little to with Sam and Wyatt, I didn’t really get why they never reconnected, especially since their parents owned beach houses next door to one another. Yes, coming up with viable ways to separate a couple for thirteen years is hard. But still.

So, will you like Same Time Next Summer? If you don’t mind a (mind) love triangle, are all about a second chance at love story, are okay with some teen romance flashbacks and/or liked The Summer I Turned Pretty and Sleepless in Seattle … YES.

Or you can read Nora Goes Off Script. Or you can read both!

If you have read them or want to, let me know in comments!