This book hits home for me personally . It’s a story about a girl coping with the loss of her parents and I think the author depicts grief in a way thats believable and easy to grasp for younger readers. The plot itself could’ve been more captivating and I did find my mind wandering while reading. Overall I would rate this book is 2.5 stars. I know this is an Arc but I feel like the editing was all over the place and it was rather slow paced.

I really enjoyed how this YA book takes place at 19, the end of the teenage years, after high school, at a challenging time in ones life. I wish I could have read something like this when I was 18-19; I love YA, but it was a little disheartening when every main character was 16 at most. I also liked how it strayed from the typical path of going straight through college directly after high school. The mention of anxiety was nice to see as well, although it felt rushed and underdeveloped at times. However, I saw myself in Marly at times of panic and being unable to sleep.

As a YA reader, I really enjoyed how the book followed a romance while on adventure. At times, it did feel a little rushed and as if it was moving far too fast. I also wish the resolution was different as the book discussed many deep topics. I did enjoy this book though, and it was a good break from reality for a bit.

This book was really intense. A lot about grief and healing. It was really sad. But I really loved it.

I enjoyed this story. Part coming to terms with grief, part hike and travel log. I found it relatable in many ways though impractical in others. Overall a nice read.

This review will appear on my blog and on Goodreads on July 31, 2021

Introduction

Marly Price lost her parents in a car accident 9 months ago, and since then, she's just been going through the motions. She's getting through it, but every day feels the same as the last. When she's presented with the opportunity to travel across the US in a renovated VW bus, she knows she should do it. The old her, the person she was before her parents died, would have jumped at the opportunity. To travel again, to enjoy hiking again, to enjoy photography again. Those are all things Marly wants. But after everything that's happened, will Marly be able to find passion in the things that she used to love again?

Pacing

The pacing starts off very slow as Marly is being convinced by her family to take the bus on the road trip, but as it starts to take off, it quickly becomes very repetitive. The order of events for nearly the entire book is driving --> hiking --> Marly having a panic attack on the top of a mountain--> Marly taking photos --> Marly struggling to sleep --> repeat. Dylan, the romantic interest quickly finds his place in the cycle when he starts to calm Marly's panic attacks, but that quickly grows repetitive in nature as well. Because of this cycle, I found myself having to take a lot of breaks from reading to avoid getting bored with the story.

Romance

I was disappointed in Marly and Dylan's romance. They knew very little little about each other and there doesn't seem to be much of substance backing their feelings for each other, so it was hard for me to care about them.

Marly

Marly was just an average protagonist. The grief she felt about her parents dying was interesting to read about but I feel like she read a little younger than a nineteen year old. I think the most prominent example of Marly reading a little younger than she was intended to be was when she actually considered staying with Dylan in Colorado instead of finishing her trip so that she could make sure she kept his interest. It felt very childish to me and she didn't really get much better throughout the course of the book. I don't think she grew very much as a character with the exception of maybe the last 25 pages or so.

General Character Thoughts

I feel like at best, the characters were average, and at worst, a little forgettable. I especially feel this way about Dylan and Lori. They both had essentially no personality. Dylan enjoyed hiking, which is necessary, but we get enough of the hiking obsession with Marly. Lori felt a little bit excitable most of the time, but she just felt like the bubbly happy token character there to balance out Marly. Mostly, they both felt like they were both only there for Marly's development rather than having personalities on their own.

Conclusion

Overall, this book was only okay. The repetitive nature really bogged it down for me and since I wasn't really into the romance, even the cutesy scenes that served to break the routine a little bit didn't interest me very much. There does look to be a second book coming, so the story will continue, and I would consider giving it a chance in hopes to see a little bit more character development.

3 stars

Thank you Netgalley, Stone Ridge Books, and Mandi Lynn for sending me an e-ARC of Meet Me at the Summit in exchange for an honest review.

For the most part, Meet Me at the Summit was a good book, and I enjoyed the story. Unfortunately, it did have a large amount of typos, and tons of repetition. I felt Mandi Lynn could've been a little more creative in some parts of the book, and some of the dialogue didn't seem that realistic or natural.

Meet Me at the Summit tells the story of 19 year old Marly Price. 9 months ago, her parents died in a terrible car accident. She works at a TJ Maxx store that she hates, and the only reason she's working there in the first place is to keep her mind off her parents and to keep herself occupied. When she's invited to Washington for a family reunion, her Uncle Ethan convinces her to take a trip across the US in her late mother's camper van. During her trip, she meets Dylan. There isn't much depth to his character and you really don't learn anything about his background or interests. He pushes her to step out of her comfort zone, helps her face her fears, and accompanies her along her journey. This book explores the stages of grief and shows that grief isn't something that you can overcome quickly, and it will never completely fade.

The main thing I struggled with was the romance. Now this is my personal opinion when it comes to books, but I don't believe in love after the exchange of a few sentences, or dating literally 2 days after the characters have met. I prefer a book where after a while of the characters being introduced, they realize that they've begun to catch feelings for each other.

The concept of this book was good, but it was really slow. The characters were likable, although some of them were somewhat one-dimensional. But Meet Me at the Summit made me want to go hiking in all these landmarks that I didn't even know existed. You can tell a great deal of effort and research was put into this book, which I appreciate.

Overall, it was a good book, and I would recommend it if you have the patience to get through a really slow book and if you're looking for a book that shows someone's way of coping during their time of grief.

Meet me at the Summit by Mandi Lynn is a contemporary romance that follows Marly, a young American female whos parents both died in a freak accident. Marly is going day by day through life, not really living or enjoying life, but just going through the motions. Following a family gathering, and a lot of persuasion, Marley ends up driving home across country in a VW van. This is following out her late mothers (and all of our) dreams, while also trying to find herself, find enjoyment and deal with her grief. On the road, Marly meets Dylan... and you can tell where it goes from there.

I like Marly. We learn alot about her character, her thoughts and emotions as we enter this trip with her. Mandi Lynn has created a very enjoyable character,that we watch grow throughout the story. Dylan on the other hand is a very 2D character, who in my opinions has a lot of faults. We never learn very much about Dylan, that may be the authors intention, however it does mean the romance department of this story was lacking. Dylan is a very sneaky, pushy, male with a tendancy to gaslight.... you will see what I mean when it comes to North Carolina... I couldnt really connect with the romance at all, however I was 100% routing for Marly the whole time.

The book features a very heavy topic of grief. Its such a powerful book and very insightful. It teaches us that nobody grieves in the same way, there is not a right way or a wrong way. It also shows us the power of friendship and family, and how we can all try to support someone in different ways.

I originally was interested in this book because the cover is super cute and the storyline sounded good. Overall, this is a very enjoyable read. I finished it within 2 days, sitting down for long periods of time. If people were looking for a quick, easy read I would be recommending this.

My Goodreads view can be found here : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4077766707

This is a lovely, poignant read that had me itching to go for a hike! Lynn's writing on grief and loss is stunning and I highlighted so many quotes that really resonated with me.
Marly and Lori's friendship should be explored more because I felt their friendship lacked a lot of depth. I think it would have been nice to see Lori's character developed more so we could connect with their friendship.
Marly and Dylan's romance was built up slowly and I appreciated that especially because Marly was dealing with anxiety.
Overall, a quick and easy read with some great writing!

“Meet Me At the Summit” was a lovely read which was unfortunately marred by typos, grammatical errors, and repetitive word choice. 33 typos, to be exact. Which really is a shame because the story itself was great! Marly is a young woman who lost her parents tragically and suddenly. She spiraled into a depression and before she knew it, she was living in a figurative groundhogs day without finding joy or hope in anything. Her savior appears just when she needs it most, in the form of a renovated VW bus. This story really hit home for me, not because of the tragedy, but because of my intense and frequent desire to just get up and go. Travel the country. Live on my own timeline and answer to no one. While that is not in the cards for me, at least I can live vicariously through Marly. I do recommend reading this story, and I will definitely read the second book in the series that Mandi Lynn alluded to, but I hope that the proofreader and editor step it up a notch before publication. Special thanks to @netgalley for providing me this book in exchange for my honest feedback and review. 2.5/5 ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book for this honest review!

Meet Me at the Summit was a nice read! With the fascinating descriptions of the hikes Marly went on and the depiction of grief, the book kept my interest throughout. However, it did feel a little wattpad-y: not in a bad way, but some the pacing was kind of slow and the romance was a bit underdeveloped at the beginning, though enjoyable. Overall, I'd give it 3.5/5 stars, and I'll probably be back for the sequel!

The concept and cover of this book really drew me in! With the rise of off-grid and camper van living being popular across social media it’s become a dream of mine to spend a year travelling across the UK in a converted camper.
The plot revolves around Marly’s trip across the US in her late mother’s camper van. She’s been struggling with her grief after the death of both her mother and father, leaving friends and family concerned. One summer her uncle surprises her with the van and somehow convinces her to take a trip in it… unfortunately that’s kind of as far as the plot goes. It’s a very slow paced book, and while that’s great to read across a few long, summer afternoons, it’s not ultimately the most gripping of novels.
Along the way she finds herself meeting new people including one boy called Dylan. As a reader we don’t learn a huge amount about him or his interests leaving the romance pretty one dimensional. I enjoyed how most of her friends and family firmly nudged Marly when she needed to push past her comfort zones. It showed that grief cannot be fixed in a day and it's a long process which you will never 100% heal from. Yet I found Dylan attempting to completely push her past all those carefully constructed mental defense mechanisms and in return pushing past most boundaries a new couple should have. At one point she asked if they could turn back home and instead while she sleeps he drives her to a completely different state so that when she wakes up she’s extremely confused and (rightly so) angry. This made me pretty uncomfortable to read and it was never addressed between the two of them! I understand what the author was trying to do with his character, ultimately helping her rethink her grieving process, but it came across too forceful.
Now I’ve spoken about the romance I can actually talk about the rest of the book which admittedly I really enjoyed! The writing was well crafted overall (with a few SPAG errors which I assume will be ironed out in the editing process?) and it had a huge escapism aspect to it. I felt like I’d hiked those mountains myself and felt a strong sense of accomplishment for Marly when she did so. I think overall the concept for this book is STRONG and the characters are likeable - it just needs the romance to be retouched and maybe a quick look at the pacing.
I would recommend it to anyone looking for a book to escape into while stuck at home due to the pandemic!

In Meet Me at the Summit Marly Price is stuck in her grief 9 months after the death of both her parents. She's now a college drop out and works a minimum wage job that she hates but keeps her busy. Until during a family reunion her family and best friend push her to take a road trip across the US in an old school VW bus, to reconnect with herself and the memories of her parents.
This book is a great exploration of grief and the guilt that comes with having close-ones die unexpectedly, as well as a fantastic way to make readers want to hike and photograph the wilderness. Despite the writing not always being the most fluid to read, the story was captivating enough to make me finish the book in under 24 hours. The copy I got was an uncorrected proof, so my hope is that the final version will get some editing as I felt some passages felt repetitive or unnatural as dialogue. This was however mainly pushed to the back of my mind as the characters were easy to get attached to and their adventures made me want to plan a long hike through my closest access to wilderness.
All in all, I think this is a great summer book that manages to be both light enough at times while touching the very serious subjects that are grief, anxiety, depression and trauma.

this book was a beautiful display of finding yourself and coming to terms with grief, all while set up behind gorgeous locations. I’ve never read a road trip style book, but all the content and descriptive language when describing the different locations was easy to understand and imagine. The story was a bit slow to begin with, but after I got into it, I couldn’t put it down! Overall rating was a 3.5/5!

- 3.75 stars.
Meet Me at the Summit is a YA book following Marly and her story of grief, mourning and love.
I really loved this book! It was super fun and entertaining, especially as a person who used to hike a lot. I could very easily imagine the activities that Marly and Dylan were doing and the adventures they were on, the world building and descriptions were done very well. I also really liked the photography element of the book and found it interesting to read about. The concept of grief and the numbness and avoidance that comes with it, was portrayed beautifully and accurately (in my opinion).
All that aside, this book had horrible editing, there were many spelling errors. The romance was also a little bit insta-lovey, which I didn’t really mind, but I know many don’t like that trope. My biggest issue with this book was that the author assumed that everyone knew the geography of the U.S, and had basic knowledge of the states and their locations. As a Jordanian, living in the middle east, I had no idea which states bordered which, and that made the book very confusing to read. I had to keep stopping and googling specific locations and trying to match them to the characters’ journey, in order to form an understanding of their situation and try to comprehend the way they jumped from a mountain in Wyoming to a lake in Colorado.
Overall, I really related to the characters and loved the fact that this book made me want to go on a hike.

This is one that I will be purchasing for my bookshelf! The cover itself is beautiful and so is the story!

I was sent an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion for this book.
Outright i would say that the story and plot is quite good. It speaks about grief and how and what we do to deal with it in our own ways. I was intrigued by the mention of RV maybe because i am currently obsessed with off-grid living but not much mention of it.
Also, the flow of the story is quite paced and this is beginner-friendly and easy to read. I would emphasize the plot of the story is quite well but at the same time i felt it could have been slightly better.

READING COMMENTS:
<i>ugh, so this book was a prime example of what editing doesn’t look like. I know this is an ARC but some of the paragraphs were so badly edited its making me cringe.
okay, but why is this book so slow?
this reads like a 2013 wattpad novel.</i>

Okay, so this is one of those books I picked up and put down about five times and for that, it shows this isn’t the book for me. I either am interested in reading it or not and this book fell in the realm of being not.
I didn’t vibe with the characters or the story although I could see where the author was trying to direct this book. I appreciated how she tried to explore grief and what it means to be so bogged down by grief that what we know as being depression isn’t as black and white as it seems. However, this book felt very bland and I felt like there was a lot of room where things could have been developed.
I also didn’t enjoy the writing and this could definitely be due to personal opinion but it read very young to me for a MC who is supposedly nineteen.

Without spoiling much more of this book, it just wasn’t for me. It’s a shame because the cover is so pretty!
<i>I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</i>

Mandi Lynn's descriptive use is amazing. She easily created beautiful layouts that I found easy to visualize. There were a few grammar errors but nothing too major to distract from the story. My biggest complaint would be the main character. I found her a little annoying while her actions were over the top. Overall I think many people will connect with this coming of age story.

In Meet Me at the Summit Marly Price is stuck in her grief 9 months after the death of both her parents. She's now a college drop out and works a minimum wage job that she hates but keeps her busy. Until during a family reunion her family and best friend push her to take a road trip across the US in an old school VW bus, to reconnect with herself and the memories of her parents.
This book is a great exploration of grief and the guilt that comes with having close-ones die unexpectedly, as well as a fantastic way to make readers want to hike and photograph the wilderness. Despite the writing not always being the most fluid to read, the story was captivating enough to make me finish the book in under 24 hours. The copy I got was an uncorrected proof, so my hope is that the final version will get some editing as I felt some passages felt repetitive or unnatural as dialogue. This was however mainly pushed to the back of my mind as the characters were easy to get attached to and their adventures made me want to plan a long hike through my closest access to wilderness.
All in all, I think this is a great summer book that manages to be both light enough at times while touching the very serious subjects that are grief, anxiety, depression and trauma.
Actual rating: 3.5/5

This was a wonderful contemporary coming-of-age story about dealing with grief and the aftermath of personal tragedy. It had a beautiful meandering feel to it and whilst it sometimes felt like Marly was going in circles it was understandable for her character and the plot and added to the feel of the novel rather than detracted from it.

The story follows Marly, a college dropout who has recently lost her parents and who is struggling to grieve and to find a way to live her life. She gets talked into taking a road trip to various hiking trails across the US.

The imagery in this was gorgeous and the pacing was fantastic. I really empathized with the characters and found myself engrossed in the story. I read this pretty much straight through once I started.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC.