“I’ll let fate decide – one coin flip at a time”
– Jessica Pennington
This was such a cute read that will be perfect for anyone looking for that summer read! It’s a story about how life may not go just the way you thought/planned for, but how fate might have something even better in store. Both of the main characters experience significant changes in their lives and the story really showed them figuring out who they were through these changes. The main characters were really relatable and had a ton of character growth throughout the book.
âž½ Olivia – Olivia has everything she’s ever wanted: she’s dating her best friend that she’s been crushing on for years, scored an amazing internship for the summer, and lives with her fun aunt. Sounds like the perfect life right? Well things take a turn pretty quickly when her aunt announces her new job in Arizona. Suddenly Olivia’s life isn’t going as she had planned. Her boyfriends breaks up with her after she announces the move and then takes off for the summer without a word. To top it all off the dream internship she had scored is no more and she will now be working at the River Depot and Olivia isn’t really the outdoorsy or go with the flow type. She’ll be changing up her planning ways by letting fate take the wheel from now since nothing she plans goes right anyways. On the plus side she’ll have yummy Aiden Emerson to look at all summer.
âž½ Aiden – The all-star pitcher of the Varsity baseball team and golden boy of the town who is going to take the team to playoffs. Until he doesn’t by losing the last regular game of the season by getting clocked in the face with a line drive. Then he suddenly quits the team and pisses all his “friends” off. Aiden is struggling to come to terms with the facts that he’s losing his vision in one eye and is trying to discover who he is without baseball. Luckily he has the summer to try and figure it out. It’s too bad that his catcher’s girlfriend will be working with him all summer too.
Olivia and Aiden really helped each other find themselves. It was interesting to see what Aiden wanted to pursue after baseball and how he did have other interests outside of it. Olivia just wanted to take chances and not be her usual tight-laced self and Aiden really helped her do that in a safe environment. They both tried new things and had cute outside of the box date ideas that I might steal this summer.
While I loved the storyline there was no thing I didn’t like. At the beginning of the story we’re told how Olivia’s mom abandoned her when she was younger to “find herself.” She does pop up in the story but the relationship between the two just didn’t come off as believable. There was no real diving beneath the surface and fixing what I assume would be years Olivia struggling with her mom just dumping her wither her Aunt and Grandma. Nothing was ever really hashed out and I would have liked to have seen that.
Even with what I mentioned above it was still a read that I really enjoyed. I do wish there had been more to the Epilogue because I have lingering questions, but overall a quick and cute read that should be read next to the pool or at the beach this summer. The Michigan setting was amazing to read about and made me want to find the nearest lake/river asap even though I’d freeze my butt off. I’ll miss Aiden and Olivia but will be checking out Jessica Pennington’s other novel Love Songs & Other Lies!
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