Cute concept brought down by some poor characterization

⭐⭐⭐ 

Summer Reading, by Jenn McKinlay, is a cute enough read; my rating was definitely helped by the setting (Martha's Vineyard, where my husband and I spent a day on our honeymoon) and some trope-flipping (the male love interest, Bennett, is a librarian; the female main character, Samantha, doesn't read at all) (she is a chef, though, but one can only hope for so much when in a rom-com).

After losing out at a promotion at work, 28-year-old chef Sam returns home to Martha's Vineyard to watch her teenage half-brother Tyler for a few weeks while her dad and stepmom do some traveling in Europe. On the ferry, she accidentally knocks the book out of Ben's hand--right into the water. Ben, it turns out, is a temporary library director on the island for the summer to try to find out who his father is. Sam winds up balancing trying to bond with a 14-year-old, taking on some part-time chef work, catching up with her best friend Emily, and Ben and his search for his dad.

It's a cute concept and there's a lot to like. The island truly comes to life, and I loved the developing relationship between Sam and Tyler as well as Sam and Emily's friendship. You could feel their history, and it was nice getting mentions of their hijinks as kids without having to go into full-blown flashbacks (it IS possible, authors!).

However. Sam's defining characteristic is her dyslexia. That she has dyslexia interested, to see the world through that lens. (The print version of this book uses a dyslexia-friendly font, which is what my ereader defaulted to; since I don't like reading sans serif when I'm reading full books, I could happily switch to a serif font, but I love that the choices were made there.) Unfortunately, it overpowers the story. I liked learning about her coping mechanisms and seeing how dyslexia tied into her career--both why she became a chef and how it affected her work. But I got annoyed at both how she saw it hampering her life (Multiple men dumped her because of it!) (It's why she didn't get that promotion at work, even though she also talked about her boss being a raging misogynist!) (Kids called her "Simple Sam," a nickname I refuse to believe would have been used during the Obama administration!) and how over-the-top Ben was in supporting her ("You can problem solve in ways that my tiny brain can't even come up with" and "You intuit things that the rest of us can't even imagine because you are extraordinary" being the ones that really got to me).

Don't get me wrong. I love how he lifted her up and helped her self-esteem. (I didn't love how he didn't have a personality other than "loves books" and "rides a motorcycle.") I love that he got her into books by reading to her. She mentioned audiobooks at one point, but it doesn't seem that she ever actually tried them, and like, fine, but her hostility to books was somewhat off-putting, if understandable. You know what I would've loved? If she had been really into podcasts. That would've worked so well! Of course, that probably would've made her feel more confident in herself and her intellect, so that wouldn't work in the story. But she is so deep into how she and Ben could never be together because he's a librarian! And she has dyslexia! Even though Ben himself doesn't mind and falls all over himself to apologize after her sends her a bunch of texts and she ignores them! (Also, after one time of mentioning that she uses voice-to-text for texting, we didn't need to hear that explained every. time. she used her phone.)

There was also some cringey dancing that kept popping up throughout the book in a way that felt awkward, not cute.

Overall, the story itself was good. I just kept getting frustrated by it. It looks like McKinlay's next book is about Sam's friend Emily--in Ireland!--and I can see myself checking that one out.