Cold Summer by Gwen Cole | Book Review

Title: Cold Summer

Author: Gwen Cole

Series: N/A

Genre: Young Adult, Sci-fi, Time Travel, Romance

Publisher: Sky Pony Press

Publication date: May 2nd, 2017

Pages: 322

My rating:

Today, he’s a high school dropout with no future.

Tomorrow, he’s a soldier in World War II.

Kale Jackson has spent years trying to control his time-traveling ability but hasn’t had much luck. One day he lives in 1945, fighting in the war as a sharpshooter and helplessly watching soldiers—friends—die. Then the next day, he’s back in the present, where WWII has bled into his modern life in the form of PTSD, straining his relationship with his father and the few friends he has left. Every day it becomes harder to hide his battle wounds, both physical and mental, from the past.

When the ex-girl-next-door, Harper, moves back to town, thoughts of what could be if only he had a normal life begin to haunt him. Harper reminds him of the person he was before the PTSD, which helps anchor him to the present. With practice, maybe Kale could remain in the present permanently and never step foot on a battlefield again. Maybe he can have the normal life he craves.

But then Harper finds Kale’s name in a historical article—and he’s listed as a casualty of the war. Kale knows now that he must learn to control his time-traveling ability to save himself and his chance at a life with Harper. Otherwise, he’ll be killed in a time where he doesn’t belong by a bullet that was never meant for him.

“If I think of nothing, the pain goes away. Novocain for the heart.

Everything is cold, and a war ranges around me. But I feel nothing when I let myself.

Sometimes it’s the best thing I can do.”

This book has been on my radar ever since I read the premise and saw the cover, because c’mon, look at it! It’s absolutely gorgeous and intriguing. And the premise sounded like something very unique and totally right out my alley. So I bought it, I couldn’t help it. But it wasn’t until now that I decided to pick it up. And I was pretty impresed, let’s be real. I didn’t expected it to be that way but it had a lot of things I enjoyed.

But if you’re expecting a story with an amazing and mind blowing plot, you’ll probably be a bit disappointed. I feel like the plot itself wasn’t the main focus in the story, but it’s more character driven. However, I’m going to tell you in a second why I thought that was really interesting to read.

It was a bit slow and dragging sometimes, though. I don’t know if it was me (because I’ve been reading non-stop for the BookTubeAThon and was veeery tired), but there were some parts that bored me a little bit because I felt nothing was really happening.

“The clouds look the same and the sun is just as bright.

It’s one thing that never changes. The only thing that brings me confort. Because wherever I might end up, the sky is always there, the sun during the day and the moon at night.”

I really really loved the character development throughout the book. Basically, I adored the entire character’s path. I wasn’t expected it to be that character focused, so it took me completely by surprise (damn me for not remembering the synopsis). Anyways, I loved the interactions between both main characters and the romance. I’m so thankful (you don’t know how much) to see that it wasn’t an insta-love story. It was a very slow burning romance, and even though the romance was an important focus in the story, I feel like it wasn’t the main one, which is something I appreciate.

It’s told in two POVs, Kale and Harper. I don’t mind multiple POVs, so I had no problem here, but in my opinion having two characters telling the same story added more depth to the story itself, since you could get to know them better.

I have to say though, that I sometimes I disliked them a little bit??? Don’t ask me why because I don’t even know it myself, but yeah, I wanted to adress this as well.

“It’s like you think you know someone, and the moment you find out the truth about them, everything is suddenly different. And no matter what you do, you can’t take it back.”

AND IT’S A BOOK ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH AS WELL. AND I LOOOOVED TO SEE THAT. Our main character has PTSD, mainly because of the war he lived. I wasn’t expected that AT ALL, and it was done quite well in my opinion. You could see the aftermaths of that war and how it affected him and his relationship with his family and friends.

It also deals with family relationships and family drama basically, which is something I’ve been really enjoying lately. I really like those scenes, they add much more realism to the story and well, it makes it quite easier to relate to the characters.

So if you’ve been interested in this book or maybe want to read some contemporary with a twist of historical fiction I suggest you to pick it up!