Title: Burnout Summer
Author: Jenna Ramirez
Genre: Romance
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Four years after graduation, life isn’t going the way Camille Luna expected. Her corporate career is soul-sucking, she’s in debt from student loans, and her breakup with her ex has created a serious rift between her college best friends. When her spiraling lands her in jail for the night, it’s Danny Brennan —the lovable burnout from their college clique— who bails her out and offers the perfect solution to her quarter-life crisis: a summer by the beach.
Cam is whisked away to Elswick, Rhode Island, where former slacker Danny has taken over his uncle’s restaurant and turned it into a seaside hotspot. But while Danny has grown into a devoted boss and dog dad, his carpe diem life philosophy is still as fiery as ever. The hazy summer days start to blur between shifts at the restaurant, dips in the ocean, and a reignited passion for writing, all alongside Danny who makes her laugh like nobody else. Cam can’t help but wonder —is it the salty waves that have her feeling so renewed, or is it the carefree friend she always overlooked? But summer can’t last forever, and Cam’s looming student debt reminds her at every turn that the frigid air of corporate office life is waiting.
As September approaches, Cam must decide between snuffing out the flames with Danny in order to keep her beloved friend group together and return to the corporate grind—or falling into his forbidden arms and setting her old life ablaze.
This was a solid read, but nothing unexpected. Cam was a bit whiny and why-didn’t-anyone-ever-tell-me-things for me (about everything from her student loans to oh, the engagement of one of her supposed best friends, so…not a one-time thing). While I agree that you don’t have to have a degree or do what everyone else is doing to be happy, Cam low key got on my nerves with her judgment of others and feeling sorry for herself.
Jenna Ramirez lives in L.A. Burnout Summer is her debut novel.
(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press | Saturday Books in exchange for an honest review.)
Tomorrow Is Another Day 