Slept Away

Slept Away
By: Julie Kraut

Laney Parker is a city girl through and through. For her, summertime means stepping out of her itchy gray school uniform and into a season of tanning at rooftop swimming pools, brunching at sidewalk cafes, and—as soon as the parents leave for the Hamptons—partying at her classmates’ apartments.

But this summer Laney’s mother has other plans for Laney. It’s called Camp Timber Trails and rustic doesn’t even begin to describe the un-air-conditioned log cabin nightmare. Laney is way out of her element—the in-crowd is anything but cool, popularity seems to be determined by swimming skills, and the activities seem more like boot camp than summer camp.

Splattered with tie dye fall out, stripped of her cell, and going through Diet Coke withdrawal, Laney is barely hanging on. Being declared the biggest loser of the bunk is one thing, but when she realizes her summer crush is untouchably uncrushable in the real world, she starts to wonder, can camp cool possibly translate to cool cool?

Summer camp might just turn this city girl’s world upside down!

summary from book

My Rating: 3.5/5

I really enjoyed this book. I had not read anything by Julie Kraut prior to this novel but I have to say that I really enjoyed her writing style. It's very humors and she comes up with so many funny metaphors in this book. I also liked her descriptions and just the overall flow of her writing.

There is a little bit of romance in Slept Away but not much. In a way, I wish there had been more just because at times I was a tad bored but---on the other hand, I liked that this book was about Laney's summer camp experience and how it focused on more than just a romance. It showed that you can have a positive summer experience without boys.

It seems that in every summer book I read, there's a boy involved which takes up most of the novel but in Slept Away, it was more about Laney and about friendship. I thought it was a nice and realistic change.