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My Summer of Pink and Green. by Lisa Greenwald. March 2013. Amulet Books. 272 pages. ISBN: 9781419704130

In My Summer of Pink and Green, the sequel to 2009’s My Life in Pink and Green, Lucy Desberg’s family finally begins work on the eco-spa that will attract new business to their aging pharmacy. Lucy is excited, mostly because the eco-spa was her idea, and she is anxious to expand her business as a makeup artist. Unfortunately, what no one has told Lucy is that the family is bringing in a consultant to oversee the spa’s grand opening, and that Lucy’s main role in the entire process will be to hang out with Bevin, the annoying daughter of the business’s chief investor. Lucy also has other things to deal with - her sister came home from college with a new boyfriend, her best friend, Sunny, is all wrapped up in her new boyfriend to the point that she can’t talk about anything else, and Sunny’s brother, Yamir, on whom Lucy has a crush, seems to like Lucy one minute and forget she exists the next. It’s going to be a long summer!

My feelings about Lisa Greenwald’s books have run the gamut over the past few years. I loved Sweet Treats and Secret Crushes, but felt lukewarm about Reel Life Starring Us. My Life in Pink and Green fell squarely in the middle of the spectrum, and now My Summer of Pink and Green is leaning more closely to the love I felt for Sweet Treats and Secret Crushes. I read the first book about Lucy not long ago, right after I received the digital ARC of this book from NetGalley, so Lucy has been fresh in my mind, and I like where this second book takes her character.

Lucy is a go-getter and an optimist, and it is undoubtedly her determination that saves the family from financial ruin in the first book. I completely understood her indignation, therefore, when most of her responsibilities are taken away in this sequel. I think the entire story explores something interesting that we don’t get to see very often in children’s literature. What happens to kids like Lucy who take on a lot of adult responsibilities when the adults in their lives get it together and don’t need their help anymore? Of course, Lucy should be a child and hang out with Bevin and have fun. Any adult reading this book will easily see that the responsibilities placed on Lucy’s shoulders were perhaps not fair to her, but how does that same situation feel to a child who felt so needed and now feels left out? Lucy’s family is very much in a time of transition, and this book deals so realistically and authentically with the emotions a child might feel.

This book also deals with a lot of other common tween problems - boys, best friends, and cruelty. What I like about Greenwald’s handling of these subjects is that Lucy plays the role of both good guy and bad guy. She’s not blameless in the rift between herself and Sunny or herself and Yamir, nor is she completely kind and friendly to Bevin all the time. She’s a normal kid learning to navigate not just new family dynamics, but new developments in her friendships as well.

My Summer of Pink and Green will appeal first and foremost to readers who have read the first book and want to know how things turn out for Lucy and the eco-spa. It’s also a good read for fans of Leslie Margolis’s series of earnest middle school tales beginning with Boys Are Dogs, and readers who have enjoyed Every Soul a Star and other books by Wendy Mass.

I received a digital ARC of My Summer of Pink and Green from Amulet Books via NetGalley.

For more about this book, visit Goodreads and Worldcat.

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