Their melody was a meeting of hearts until big city dreams changed the tune. Can time help them rewrite the heartache and give them a second chance? One More Summer brings the real world to small town living. Burke lights up the canvas with a sweetheart of a love story that never quite fizzled out. His dreams proved bigger than their small town and lead young love down the road to heartbreak. Now he's back to claim the love he never forgot. Levi are Annie are only a piece of a much bigger picture. Family tragedy, adult angst and small town meddling, pepper the landscape with heartwarming moments and heartbreaking discovers. From ugly cry to megawatt smile, Dez Burke delivers compelling entertainment.

This is an entirely predictable, paint-by-numbers, rip-your-heart-out-and-stomp-on-it coming of age YA cancer book—the very kind that Hazel sneered at in The Fault in Our Stars. It’s full of emotionally manipulative scenarios, teenagers making remarkably bad decisions with remarkably flawed logic (as teenagers are wont to do), and more typos than I could easily forgive, but ye gods! It hurts so good!

Second Chance Summer doesn’t offer anything new to the cancer book subgenre, but it does not come to the table empty-handed. The picture Matson paints of a distant, not very affectionate family pulling together in the face of impending tragedy and fumbling their way through getting to know each other is so vivid it’s painful. I felt the awkwardness, the frustration, the insecurity and uncertainty of a teenage girl who wants desperately to stop running from her problems and make connections with her loved ones but doesn’t know how. I felt like throwing my Kindle against a wall when the main character let chance after chance pass by without saying what she needed to in order to mend her broken friendships. I felt so much that I could keep on churning out these terrible run-on sentences until words no longer make sense and my husband has to stage a keyboard intervention.

Yes, it’s a typical cancer book. You know exactly what you’re getting going in (a solid kick in the feels), and that’s a good thing. It’s the kind of emotional rollercoaster you need to be able to brace yourself for. I think I need to read a book like this every once in a while just to reassure myself that I’m not some sort of sociopath and can actually feel deep empathy for well-written, relatable characters.

So thanks, book I don’t remember buying by author I’ve never heard of. Sometimes I wonder.

I couldn't decide what I was in the mood to read, so I decided to surprise myself by doing another Read a Book I Don't Remember Buying selection. I haven't done one of these for ages. Let's see what sort of book Past Me snuck into my Kindle library!

Oh.

Oh no.

It's a YA contemporary cancer book.

Brace yourselves, feelings!

Fiercely independent Daisy Chance has a dream—and it doesn’t involve marriage or babies (or being under any man’s thumb). Raised in poverty, she has a passion—and a talent—for making beautiful clothes. Daisy aims to become the finest dressmaker in London.
 
Dashing Irishman Patrick Flynn is wealthy and ambitious, and has entered society to find an aristocratic bride. Instead, he finds himself growing increasingly attracted to the headstrong, clever and outspoken Daisy. She’s wrong in every way—except the way she sets his heart racing.
 
However, when Flynn proposes marriage, Daisy refuses. She won't give up her hard-won independence. Besides, she doesn't want to join the fine ladies of society—she wants to dress them. She might, however, consider becoming Flynn's secret mistress...
 
But Flynn wants a wife, and when he sets his heart on something, nothing can stand in his way...