Review: Hot Girl Summer

• Title: Hot Girl Summer

• Author: Sonia Palermo

• Series: N/A

• Genre: Contemporary Romance

• Rating: ☆☆.5

**Thank you NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours for a copy of this ARC. This is my honest review.**

Perhaps this is a reader problem, than an author problem, but I didn’t really enjoy this story. I should preface that when I read the synopsis for this, I didn’t do enough research on the author and found that this book’s focus was a whole lot spicier than I came in expecting. Whilst I don’t mind a fair amount of spice in a book if it fits well with the plotline, for me, I didn’t find Hot Girl Summer was executed well enough for my liking. I didn’t like Sophia. I found myself questioning her reactions far too much, especially from the beginning. Even if some of them were a defense mechanism, it didn’t build her up favourably in my mind. I felt her voice was much younger than 26, and struggled to place her within my mind as I read. Perhaps because I’ve never been a party girl, or cared much for that scene, I couldn’t relate to anything she did and found her rather erratic, especially with the back and forth of her reactions and her contradictory thoughts about men. I did try to, and there were some small moments where I grew hopeful that I was warming up to her, but the pacing and use of several side characters made for a bit of a messy read. I was also rather impartial to Danny. I didn’t see him as cocky or a jerk when Sophia did, and I didn’t find him appealing when she was completely in love with him. I didn’t hate nor love him, and quite often I struggled with their feelings and reactions being believable enough. I think one of the biggest issues I had with this novel was how many side storylines that occurred. A few of them had really heavy topics that I could appreciate the effort the author put in with initial information, but again, it seemed too choppy jumping back and forth between them, and nothing helped build them up. I hoped that they would either stop taking the forefront or become something the author focused on to warrant their placement in this world. There was a lot of telling of emotions rather than letting the reader experience it, and I struggled with the point of there being so many heavy topics that I lost track of what the book was really about. This is a spicier read. I was surprised by some scenes, whilst others made me wonder why they were written. Again, I will point out that I don’t opt for spicier reads, and try to choose romances more driven by plot than romance in this genre - which is sometimes hard to filter through when the synopsis reads as something sweeter than spicy. I think this book just wasn’t for me and will be liked by others who can relate to this type of world that I’ve never had a part in so that’s why it fell beyond my level of understanding.