Nantucket Red (Nantucket #2) – Leila Howland

Title: Nantucket Red (Nantucket #2) by Leila Howland
Publishing Info: May 13, 2014 by Disney Hyperion
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Find it on the web: Buy from Amazon // GoodreadsDate Completed: May 3, 2014
Related Posts: Nantucket Blue (Nantucket #1), Hello, Sunshine

    Cricket Thompson's lifetime of overachieving has paid off: she's headed to Brown University in the fall, with a spot on the lacrosse team and a scholarship that covers almost everything. Who knew living in the dorm cost money? An Ivy League education seems to mean living at home for the next four years.
When Cricket is offered the chance to earn enough cash to afford a real college experience, she heads back to Nantucket for the summer. But the faraway island challenges Cricket in ways she hadn't anticipated. It's hard to focus on earning money for next year, when she finds her world opening up in entirely new ways-to art, to travel, and, most unexpectedly, to a future completely different from the one she has been working toward her whole life. A friendship blossoms with Ben, the gorgeous surfer and bartender who encourages Cricket to be free, even as she smarts at the pain of seeing Zack, her first love, falling for her worst enemy.
But one night, when Cricket finally lets herself break all her own rules, she realizes she may have ruined her carefully constructed future with one impulsive decision. Cricket must dig deep to fight for her future, discovering that success isn't just about reaching goals, but also about listening to what she's been trying to ignore-her own heart.

Oh, NANTUCKET RED. You were just perfect for me. When I read NANTUCKET BLUE last year, I really enjoyed it but immediately upon finishing, it didn’t totally wow me. Then the more I sat there and thought about the book, the more I realized how much I really, really loved it and how sometimes you just need to sit on your feelings for a book before you decide entirely how it has affected you. But for NANTUCKET RED, I immediately knew this was a book I just fell head over heels for.

I’m the kind of person who doesn’t read synopses and blurbs and summaries because I like to be able to fall into a book exactly as the author intended it, each reveal and plot point hitting at the exact perfect moment without really knowing anything ahead of time, so although it says it right there in the synopsis, I actually wasn’t aware about the break from Zack and how he and Cricket end up traveling totally different paths for a while. The beginning of the book ran through a few months rather quickly. The book picks up right where we left the characters after NANTUCKET BLUE but in order to catch up to the next summer (and avoid flash backs), the reader is taken through almost a year fairly quickly to understand how the characters end up where they are before the next summer on Nantucket arrives. Usually that doesn’t always sit right with me, but I was really glad to see the book done this way because I feel like flashbacks are worse! I liked being able to have a bit of a refresher from the first book and just jump right back into things. I liked being able to experience them as they happened and to be there in the moment, feeling what Cricket felt. We got the important highlights and I think it was done really well!

One thing I really love about both of these books is the unintentional journey that Cricket goes on to find herself and decide exactly what path she wants to take in life. After reading these books, I honestly wish I was ever as brave as she had been because I felt such a connection to her and the decisions she had to make regarding so many aspects of her future, even if I never had to make those exact same decisions. She made a lot of hard choices because she was able to see the big picture and have the support of the people around her to help her. In NANTUCKET BLUE, that journey revolves more around her family and her friendships, all the while nursing a new relationship, and the ways she changes from those events. In NANTUCKET RED, I feel like with the ache of a break-up in her heart, she does a different kind of soul-searching and ends on an even more personal quest to find out who she really is apart from relationships and away from family. She bonds more deeply to her friends and starts to make decisions based on what she really wants, and it may not have been something she even expected.

Everything about NANTUCKET RED just felt so real to me and reading it just felt like being home. I just really connected to all of the characters — honestly, every single one — and Cricket felt like pieces of me and pieces of my best friends. I really felt like I could have fallen into the book and easily been a part of Cricket’s group of friends and everything from characters to situations — even to setting, although I’m not familiar with Nantucket at all — it just all felt like somewhere I’ve been before and people I’ve known. Leila Howland does an amazing job of making everything extremely realistic and just come to life.

I was honestly sad when the book was over. Everything ended well and I felt closure on the stories that we picked up through NANTUCKET BLUE and NANTUCKET READ but I still wasn’t ready for it all to end. I just didn’t want to let these characters go. Any chance I can follow Cricket and these characters to college and beyond? New Adult Nantucket? Adult Nantucket? No? Okay.

As much as I loved NANTUCKET BLUE, NANTUCKET RED really sealed the deal for me. I felt like such a part of it and identified with it in so many ways. I don’t think I was ready for the amount of emotions I felt while reading this book and looking back on it, I get that rush of emotions all over again thinking about how I felt when I read it. It’s something that’s really going to stick with me for a long time.

“The View from Goodreads” is a new featured section in my reviews that I decided to incorporate! I tend to update my Goodreads status a LOT when I read — reactions, feelings, notes — so I thought it would be fun to share the sort of “reading process”! All status updates are spoiler-free (no specific plot points will be revealed) but will contain reactions to certain pages and/or characters!

Cricket // Character Obsessions: Working, Brown, lacrosse, Zack.
Cricket is clearly one of my soul sisters. I just related to her SO. MUCH. in this book — like, a ridiculous amount. The way she reacted to things, the things she said, the things she went through… I just really connected to her and I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve related that much.
Zack // Character Obsessions: School, Parker, Nantucket, and yes, still Cricket.
Not gonna lie. I was a little mad at Zack, and yet like Cricket, I just couldn’t let him go. I knew there was SOMETHING, still SOMETHING there. Something happened. Something was wrong. It wasn’t over yet! And not to mention I’m still in love with Zack a little myself too.
Ben // Character Obsessions: Work, mixing drinks, outdoors, surfing.
Oooh, Ben the older guy. I really liked him too and I actually loved his involvement in the book. Oh, Leila Howland, you totally nailed it. He was the perfect way to introduce a new guy without making a serious love triangle and still allow the two main characters to have their original connection.

Kept Me Hooked On: Leila Howland. Yep, this book and this series pretty much made her an auto-buy author for me. I just FELL IN LOVE with this book and I need more books from her ASAP.
Left Me Wanting More: Nantucket-world. Nantucket New Adult? Nantucket College? Nantucket in the Big City? I want them ALL. Don’t get too excited — pretty sure Leila Howland doesn’t have these in the works, but I could live forever reading about the lives of these characters. I just fell in love with each one of them and I wish I could read about them even after their young adult lives.

Addiction Rating
BUY IT!

Buy this book. Buy this series. I just fell in love with everything about it and you bet it comes highly recommended from me!

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(Click the cover to see my review!)