The summer may be over, but I live in Texas where the sun always shines, shines, shines! Since all of my best childhood memories stem from my many years at sleepaway camp, this will forever be my most favorite season. In honor of the dog days of summer, I bring you some short and bittersweet reviews of summer camp-themed books!

Camp So-and-So by Mary McCoy

Summed up: Magic and mayhem ensues as five cabins of campers fight for their lives in a series of paranormal events. Controlled by nefarious puppetmasters, they must out-smart the evil overlords in order to survive. Very “out of the frying pan into the fire.”

What worked: This book is nothing if not imaginative! It reads like a play, complete with a mysterious all-omniscient narrator, opening scene descriptions and theatrical actors. I’ve never read anything like this, so hats off to the author for pulling off a new and daring concept! Though the book is jam-packed with a multitude of campers, I had no problem keeping the characters straight. Well done, Ms. McCoy!

What didn’t work: I’m not a fan of action-adventure stories, so this isn’t really my genre. I mainly wanted a book that would trigger nostalgic memories of my Camp Marston glory days, but that didn’t happen since this story is a far departure from reality. Not necessarily a bad thing for fantasy readers, but not always my cup of tea.

Overall consensus: At nearly 400 pages, this book was well worth my time. This is the type of story that’s hard to forget and I look forward to seeing more YA titles from this highly talented author!

Perennials by Mandy Berman

Summed up: A melancholy coming-of-age story that follows dull and lifeless characters as they navigate their many emotional hang-ups in and out of summer camp. The series of unfortunate events culminate into a tragic mess involving a periphery character nobody cares about. Essentially, readers get punished for not chunking this heap of nonsense into the DNF pile right from the get-go.

What worked: To be honest, nothing about this book worked for me. Sorry but I can’t find anything generous to say about this dud.

What didn’t work: Oh lordy! Where to begin? To put this in colloquial terms, Perennials  is a hot mess. According to the whimsical synapsis, we’re supposed to be following two girls, Rachel and Fiona, as they navigate life and friendship in summer camp. What I got was a convoluted mess of time-hopping storylines following a plethora of characters—and their dysfunctional family members to boot! I couldn’t’ relate to any of them, nor their melodramatic sob stories. Rachel’s mother was—by far—the most repulsive of them all. I don’t know what she was supposed to add to the story and am still scratching my head over the emotionally-manipulating climax (if you could call it that).

Overall consensus: This book didn’t remotely come close to delivering on its promise to intoxicate readers with “A seductive blast of nostalgia.” If you want a light summer read that will transport you back to the carefree days of summer, please—for the love!—give this book a hard pass. Read Five Summers instead.

The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane

Summed up: A grieving teenager, Zander Osborne, learns about life, love and resilience at a summer camp for at-risk youth.

What worked: I really didn’t care for this book, but I’ll try to tease out something worth singing about. Let’s see here…the cover is gorgeous so let’s go with that.

What didn’t work: Maybe I’m being extra harsh because I’ve lived at sleepaway camp four summers in a row and know all about this way of life! The author missed so many opportunities to immerse her readers into an exciting world of spooky campfire stories, dorky skit nights and epic food fights!  I question whether she, or the author noted above, even went to summer camp.

My biggest gripe is that she jumped on the John Green bandwagon and riddled her characters with so many gimmicks to turn them all into special little snowflakes. Zander likes to speak French in her head. The ever-annoying love interest (absurdly named Grover Cleveland)  likes to speak in riddles, spouting out statistics every chance he gets. Zander’s unlikely bestie, Cassie, shows affection by brutally insulting everyone she meets. But yet, Zander is wise beyond her 16 years and chooses to overlook every low blow Cassie throws at her. Come to think of it, their budding friendship was the worst part of this book. Until the very bitter—and I do mean bitter—end of this book, Cassie is an entirely repugnant human being. And Zander was more than happy to be a human doormat.

Overall consensus: I’m so over emotionally-manipulating books with gimmicky characters. Listen up, authors!  Slapping a character with a random OCD behavior does not instantly add depth and complexity. It’s just really annoying and I’m over it.