Seventeenth Summer

I am 75 year old and read this book when I was in high school. Having read all the books for teen girls in our limited school library and the bookmobile, this was my favorite. I did not recall names of the characters until reading it again today. So refreshing to read, without any foul language! I was amazed to learn the young age of the author. Her descriptions of scenes brought them to life. I knew I had to read this again when I saw it in the Kindle library. Many thanks!

Angie is a traditional girl that doesn't think much about high school crushes. It's the summer before her freshman year of college and she doesn't have big plans. That is until she meets Jack and can't deny her attraction to him. Her summer takes a complete turn for the better and she stars spending a lot of time with Jack. It quickly becomes the most romantic summer of her life, but in the back of her mind, she is constantly thinking about fall and what it inevitably brings. Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly is a glimpse into an American summer in the 1950's before relationships and life were confused by the Internet, electronics and of course, cell phones. It's a refreshing summer tale of first love that is never forgotten.Angie is the quintessential good girl. She listens to her parents, she does what she's told, she never talks back, and never questions authority. Unfortunately, most young adult today are the polar opposite, whether that's good or bad, that's up to you to decide, but I found it intriguing. It was so foreign to me to have the main character, who is going to college soon, ask her mom if she could go for a walk, etc. Most teenagers would be out the door in their car without a second thought! So for me, this was like a step back into another world and I found it delightful.Angie and Jack's relationship was cute and of course, she was nervous and second guessing everything. Thankfully, there's no Facebook, Twitter, or texting to confuse Angie even further. She just had to wait for Jack's call! Could you imagine! (Ha!) But in all honestly, it just seemed so uncomplicated.Daly really captured a first summer love; it was magical, but the whole time Angie is worried about fall since she leaves for college. Perhaps it was fresh in Daly's mind as she wrote this novel before she turned twenty, which is an impressive feat. Additionally, I found this novel to be similar to Sixteenth Summer by Michelle Dalton. It was interesting to compare the two novels; obviously, Dalton was inspired by this tale of summer love with a September deadline. On a side note, I must share this one interesting fact I came across. Seventeenth Summer is one of the first novels to target young adults--how cool!I think adults would like Seventeenth Summer as well since I'm sure it could be viewed as a walk down memory lane, but I am not sure many young adults could appreciate this different way of life as this book isn't edgy at all. For example, they say thinks like "gee" and "gosh" a lot, they go for a Coke at the local restaurant, etc, and I'm sure my students would laugh hysterically at this. I love the 50's and 60's, so I could appreciate the time period, but others may find this simple life quite boring.

I read this book in high school, many many many years ago and loved it then. Delighted to have found it on Amazon and it was just as wonderful reading it now as it was then. Poignant, sweet story of innocent first love. Just wonderful.

I am 71 and about 56 years ago, at age 15, I fell in love with Jack. Actually, I remember it as though it were yesterday. Every girl I knew read SEVENTEENTH SUMMER that year and we were all weak with 'true' love as we lived this sweet romance. We were giddy in PE class!I never had a daughter but I have now given this wonderful book to my Granddaughters and they also loved it. Young people live so much faster these days that they might often miss this kind of love.Don't miss out on sharing this book with a young girl. Any young girl! Give it to them before they are 17. Let them capture the freshness of young love - and they never have to get in the sack! Let them want their first kiss to be gentle, lovely and one worth remembering. Ahhhhh I spoiled it. Yes, he does finally kiss her! You will love this book.When I read THE NOTEBOOK and A WALK TO REMEMBER by Nicolas Sparks, I thought of this book. Some people just know how to write about true love! All we have to do is read! Let me hear how you like it.PS - 6 Years later - I just discovered Maureen Daly died in 2006. Sad never to have met her. She is worth reading about on Google - she left a son and he should be proud that her book is still being given to teenagers by grandmothers and mothers who felt the true love in Seventeenth Summer.Maureen Daly did help shape my life. I am now 77. Terry Fenwick

After reading the reviews to this book and being a love story enthusiastic, I decided to read this book. It was so... STRANGE. Being as it was written in the 40s it took place in the 40s... and I still cannot get over how different things were. It was by no means the best written book I have ever read, but it was not bad at all and I enjoyed reading it. Part of the reason I may have liked it so much was to read it and realize that the feeling of a first love does not change if a teenager wakes up every day of the summer at 6am or if she sleeps in til 1pm most of the time. It does not matter if a teenage stays within earshot of her home phone anxiously waiting a phone call or if she goes out with friends, checking her cell every 5 minutes, anxiously awaiting that same call.I just thought it was really cool to read this, haha. Life is so different. Girls are so much more forward. Girls ask boys out themselves and call boys now... but I like this idea of life better. Alas, I am 20 years old in 2011. But the book was fun anyway. I encourage other girls my age to read this... and hold men (and yourself!) to a slightly higher standard.

I first read this book in 1971 and to reread it now it is still a simple story of coming of age

great book haven't read it since primary school

Love the author Maureen Daly and her summer books. They are a good read for teenagers who like chick flicks in books.

Had read it as a teenager many moons ago. Nice to be able to purchase it and read it again after all these years. Never imagined I would be able to buy it after such a long time..

Nos anos 1950, havia no Brasil duas coleções famosas, a coleção “Menina e Moça”, infanto-juvenil, e a “Biblioteca das Moças”, já mais adolescente. Minhas tias leram ambas, e, na casa da minha avó, havia vários e vários volumes. Com uns oito anos comecei a ler a primeira coleção e, com uns doze, migrei para a segunda. Dela, fazia parte o romance de Maureen Daly — mal sabia eu, um clássico americano.“Décimo-sétimo verão” foi publicado no Brasil de então sob o péssimo título de “Primavera de Amor” — além de piegas, contradiz a história, que fala em verão o tempo inteiro. Meu primeiro contato com o livro não teve um final muito feliz. Eu estava gostando da história, mas demorando mais que o normal para terminar (o ritmo é bastante lento, talvez lento demais para uma menina de doze anos), até que um belo dia, me aproximando da conclusão, perdi o livro. Fim.Corta para 2020, quase trinta anos depois. Eu estou procurando na internet por outro livro qualquer, que li na mesma época (mas de cujos título e autor não me lembrava, só de fragmentos da trama). Não o achei até hoje, mas mirei no gato e acertei o pato: achei “Primavera de Amor”! Ou melhor, não “Primavera de Amor”, mas “Seventeenth Summer”, o livro em inglês — e, melhor ainda, na versão e-book. Comprei na mesma hora, com dólar caro e tudo, e comecei a ler.Boooom! Uau! (E mais algumas onomatopeias.) O livro é um deslumbre. Muito melhor do que me lembrava (e, nesta releitura, não tive a menor dúvida de que aos doze anos eu simplesmente não entendi tudo. Não havia a menor condição de perceber certas sutilezas). Aliás, pensar que Maureen Daly escreveu o livro com menos de vinte anos me deixa perplexa. Tanto o vocabulário e a estrutura do livro são de uma escritora muito experiente, quanto as nuances e sentimentos das personagens demonstram uma compreensão da psiquê humana que você só esperaria de alguém mais vivido.É um romance de formação feminino. Se hoje, em pleno século 21, a maioria dos romances de formação ainda se centra em rapazes, imagine há quase cem anos (sim, pois a história foi escrita e se passa nos anos 1940). É um registro rico e pormenorizado do vocabulário e costumes da época, a ponto de alguém, numa review aqui na Amazon, observar que Maureen Daly é uma Jane Austen dos anos 1940 dos Estados Unidos. Achei esse comentário um resumo perfeito.É interessante notar (e duvido muito que eu tenha percebido isso na primeira leitura que fiz, aos doze anos) que são dois verões que se sobrepõem: o da protagonista, Angie Morrow, e o de sua irmã mais velha, Lorraine. O de Angie é suave e ao mesmo tempo palpitante, doce e quase descomplicado. O de Lorraine é angustiante e conflituoso, mas só o espreitamos pelas entrelinhas, porque a história é narrada pelo ponto de vista de Angie, que não tem maturidade para entender tudo o que se passa com a irmã e assim relatá-lo ao leitor (já Maureen tem, sim, maturidade literária suficiente para nos entregar a subtrama pelo pouco que Angie consegue perceber).“Seventeenth Summer” é hoje considerado o primeiro romance YA norte-americano, embora na época fosse vendido como um livro comum para adultos, pois essa classificação só surgiu nos anos 60. Passou com louvor no teste do tempo. (Nas fotos, as duas edições que li.)P.S.: Engraçado é que, na primeira vez em que li, eu não tinha a impressão de que Jack e Angie gostassem tanto um do outro, achava que estavam mais era passando o tempo descompromissadamente. Agora foi tão claro o quanto estavam apaixonados!

I read this book first maybe 35 years ago when I was teenager, too. A nice story about the first real love between two teens, living in Fond du Lac, a small town at the lake winnebago.Sounds very autobiographical, the way Maureen Daly wrote about Fond du Lac (hm, she wrote about railroad-tracks next to the see she had to pass when she walked to the sea, but there are no railroad-tracks exept on the west-end of Fond du Lac, had there ben some more in 1941 ? ) about Angie and her family, the teenager-scene and their favorit locations and - of course, about Angies first Date with Jack, which turned to a true summer-love. Without happy end :-(