Publisher: Moses Yuriyvich Mikheyev
Date of publication: April 5th, 2022
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Purchase Links: Amazon
Goodreads Synopsis:
In his semi-autobiographical novel, This Time Next Summer, Mikheyev weaves a tender tale about love and loss, one that is distinctly personal and yet universally human.
She was beautifully broken. And his everything.
Hurt and scarred by every man in her life, Jasmine had vowed to never love again. Then she meets Avgust, and her broken heart resumes beating.
A romantic idealist who measures love by his poetry output, Avgust had given up on finding that elusive once-in-a-lifetime kind of love he’d always dreamed of. But the moment he spies Jasmine in a coffee shop, he knows unequivocally that she is his Her—the woman who will change his life.
It was the perfect love story.
Until the secrets and betrayals of the past threaten to break them apart.
Will their love be strong enough to save Jasmine from her past, and Avgust from his future?
First Line
A few hours later, when the two of them were back in the car, he held her hand and pressed it to his lips.
This Time Next Summer by Moses Yuriyvich Mikheyev
When I started reading This Time Next Summer, I thought it would be a cut-and-dry romance. You know the plotline:
- Boy meets girl.
- Falls in love, the girl breaks up with the boy.
- They get back together and have their HEA.
Also, sprinkle in lots of sex, and boom, perfect romance novel. This book is not a cut-and-dry romance, and there is no HEA. Instead, this book focuses on two damaged people (one mentally and one physically), and their on/off-again romance. I was a little bleh about this book and will explain why later on in the review.
This Time Next Summer did have an interesting plotline. Avgust is a nurse and a want to be poet who has recently relocated to Seattle from Georgia. Jasmin is a Texas transplant who is in Seattle working on her degree. They meet when Avgust happens to go into a coffee shop that Jasmin is in, and the story takes off from there. But both Avgust and Jasmin are damaged. Avgust has a disease that has taken a toll on his heart. Jasmin is mentally impaired from her past (father and fiance left her). Can Avgust help heal Jasmin? Will Jasmin allow herself to be healed? And will Avgust heed his doctor’s advice about his heart?
I liked Avgust, but I found him too angsty in certain parts of the book. He was utterly obsessed with Jasmin and sometimes came across as stalkerish. He also rushed the relationship in my eyes, and his blind love of Jasmin was a little off-putting. I also didn’t understand why he didn’t tell Jasmin about his health issues upfront.
I wouldn’t say I liked Jasmin. She played games with Avgust’s head. “I want to be with you, but I don’t” got old. I did like that she was upfront with Avgust about how damaged she was, but at the same time, I eye-rolled at her inner monologue. Even her roommate thought she was ridiculous with the back and forth with Avgust.
The romance angle of the book didn’t do it for me. Like I mentioned above, I did think that Avgust came across as stalkerish in certain scenes. Also, I wouldn’t say I liked that Avgust immediately saw Jasmin and loved her. I usually don’t mind love at first sight tropes, but this one pushed my buttons. Mainly because of how Jasmin acted with Avgust during their on-again/off-again relationship.
There are sex scenes in this book, but only one is explicit. The explicit scene was when Avgust fingered Jasmin in the car and kept talking about how wet she was. Again, I was bleh about it.
The end of This Time Next Summer was heartbreaking. There is a twist in the plot that I didn’t see coming. It broke my heart and also made me livid with Jasmin. The scenes at the end of the book, at the fair, were sad, but my sadness was a little tempered. I can’t explain why (spoilers), but I did like how it came full circle. It was just the person it came full circle with that I wasn’t happy about.
I would recommend This Time Next Summer to anyone over 21. There are sexual situations, language, and mild violence.