Alex is sort-of-famous. The troublesome teen daughter of two 'family lifestyle' bloggers, she can't wait to escape to her final summer camp. She's determined to make the most of it, live life to the full and break some of the rules. Her plan is to be outrageous and shock her wholesome parents and her conniving ex boyfriend-her wild summer will be payback.
But then she meets Javier. Her world turns upside down. Alex no longer wants to put herself first, and is almost shocked to find that she cares for someone other than herself. However, she still manages to cause chaos, even if it is unintentionally...
Camp Payback is a coming of age tale, sometimes a bit too pious, but overall an enjoyable tale of the experience of summer camp. As a Brit this is something I have never experience first hand (except 2 nights at Brownie camp when I was seven, where we slept in a church hall in fusty, festering sleeping bags) and I have always enjoyed books in this genre. It is the balance between freedom, the parent free existence, and the constraints imposed by other adults. Like books set in boarding schools, there is that limbo state where boundaries are constantly being pushed.
I didn't especially warm to Alex, which probably hampered my enjoyment of this book. However, I really liked Javier, he came across as warm and honest despite his difficult life. The romance between the two protagonists was sweet, but again my lack of empathy towards Alex didn't make me long for their happy ending.
I found the beginning of this book great, but as it progressed my interest faded. It wasn't badly written and I quite liked the plot, but Alex became more and more irritating to me as the story went on.
Overall, I am sure that the teen audience will enjoy this book- I also expect they would overlook some of Alex's character traits which I, as an adult, found annoying.
Camp Payback is out today.
6.5/10
With thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy of this book.
Thank you so much for the thoughtful review of Camp Payback, Kate!! We have gotten strong reactions to Alex for sure. Readers have been either really loving her/ identifying with her or ... not . We're so grateful to you for reading, reviewing and posting for other readers to find! As new authors, we truly can't thank you enough for that.
ReplyDeleteGreat icon, pic, by the way!!