Fireflies and Crickets

Title: Fireflies and Crickets (Ripples in the Water #2)
Author: Jackie Nacht
Cover Artist: Carmen Waters
Publisher: Extasy Books
Buy Links: Buy LinkAmazon ; Publisher
Genre: contemporary young adult romance
Length: novella
Rating: 4 stars out of 5

A Guest Review by Larissa

Review Summary: a sweet, fluffy young adult coming of age romances with some serious touches like rejection.

Blurb:
After enduring a painful rejection, Kennedy journeys to discover first love and support in the unlikeliest place.

Junior year has completely sucked for Kennedy. On his last day, out in his front yard, no less, he’s outed by classmates in front of his own father. When questioned about it, Kennedy comes out to his parents, only to find himself being sent to spend the summer with his aunt the very next day. Pained by the rejection, he has a hard time coping with his new environment until he meets his aunt’s neighbor, Evan. Together, the two will spend the summer enjoying friends and discovering first love. However, there’s the dark cloud hanging over their newfound relationship—thoughts of what will happen at the end of the summer and with Kennedy’s parents.

Review:
Fireflies and Crickets is the second book in a Young Adult coming of age series. It’s not necessary to read the first book, but it does give some insight. The story surprised me in that it’s well balanced between the romance and the drama/angst and I found it to be a really sweet story to read.

Fireflies and Crickets is not an overly long story, so it’s not surprising that it starts right in the middle of things: Kennedy being outed by bullies from his school to his parents. Coming out to your parents is never an easy things, but having the choice taken from you is even harder, especially when his parents ignore him and ship him off to his aunt for the summer.

Luckily for Kennedy, his aunt is much more open, loving and caring than his parents. Windowed, she lives in a cabin by the lake and rents out cabins to vacationing visitors. It’s there that Kennedy meets Evan, the hot, hunky boy next door and sparks start to fly. Suddenly the summer starts looking a whole lot better. But what happens when summer ends?

The story deals with the theme of coming of age as both Kennedy and Evan and their friends are on the brink of adulthood. It also has more serious themes of rejection and being gay. I thought those themes were handled quite nicely by the author. The story is not a serious, lengthy in depth story, so there is not a whole lot of room to give a more in depth picture. Despite that, there was a good balance. There are sweet, fun and romantic scenes with Kennedy and Evan and their friends, integrated with the more serious moments of Kennedy dealing with the fall-out of his parents’ rejection and being gay. It had just the right amount of fluff and angst.

I thought Kennedy’s aunt Holly was awesome for taking her nephew in and giving him a home and place to be himself.

The story is well written, so why the 4 stars and not the 5, I hear you wondering? Well, okay, so I’m going to contradict myself here a little. As I mentioned the story was equal parts sweet and angsty and while I thought the serious topics where well balanced, I did miss the depth a bit. At the end, after a certain event I’m not going to give away (and no, it’s not the scene with the Evan-burglar), the story quickly shifts to eight weeks later and then to a year later – effectively touching but in the end glossing over the fall-out. Instead of moving towards the happily ever after future, I would have loved more insight into Kennedy’s thoughts.

At the same time, the ending connects this book to the previous book and sets the stage for the next one. While I personally didn’t mind much, objectively it was taking the easy way out.

Other than this, Fireflies and Crickets is a story I can really recommend if you like a well-written sweet young adult coming of age story. I can guarantee several “awwww” moments and a smile at the end.
I definitely look forward to reading the next book!