Something I’m Good At is an adorable young adult romance. Caroline Andrus has created characters that are almost impossible not to like. Kane is an irresistibly cute puppy who loves food puns and Summer is the sweet, honest girl everyone wants to be friends with. I’ve never read any of Caroline Andrus’s books before now, but after Something I’m Good At, I will definitely be reading more of her work. Kane and Summer’s story is a quick, clean romance that is excellent for summers by the pool. If you’re a fan of Sarah Dessen, then I think you will love meeting Kane and his friends.

I voluntarily received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 33%. Too juvenile for my taste.
I might pick it back up in the future, but at the moment this book is not something I want to put my time into.

I normally don’t pick up this kind of little romance book, but I was drawn to this one because the main character has an autoimmune disorder. Even though I am twice the age of these characters, I do work with high schoolers so I was interested to see how this might affect someone that age. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder of my own 2 1/2 years ago, a very similar to one to this main character actually. She is trying to decide if she should distance herself from everyone, because she doesn’t want to burden everyone with her illness that is never going away. Then, she meets a boy who is so funny and kind that she is even more torn. Should she push him away or let him into her life and be honest with him? This is a title I can see some of my high schoolers enjoying, so I will purchase it for my library most likely.

This is my first Caroline Andrus book, but I will be keeping an eye out for her other books. Kane's dialogue is so refreshing, and he had me constantly cracking up. I love his confidence, optimistic outlook, and sunny disposition. He knew who he was and what he liked and it was endearing. I enjoyed learning a little bit about how Lupus impacts a person's daily life. I found Summer's struggles relatable and I think most teens will to as they learn to cope with life's challenges. Overall a fast read that kept me engaged while the pages flew by.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley. This is my honest review.

This book had some serious A Walk to Remember (the movie) vibes for me. A girl who's basically swearing off love because of an illness, Summer's just isn't terminal. I honestly felt like Summer was being a bit dramatic, but in retrospect I think I was probably just a different type of teenage girl than Summer. Also, I'm not super-familiar with exactly how lupus affects someone's life, and I guess I can sort of understand how being diagnosed as a teenager could make it seem like your life is over. But I still ultimately couldn't really relate to her swearing off love because of it. That particular pair of Summer's shoes just didn't quite fit my feet. I had no problem wearing the rest of her shoes throughout the story though.

My inability to relate to Summer's approach to love just made Kane's part of the story that much better for me though. I could not wait for them to hook up and for Summer to realize that her lupus diagnosis wasn't a spinsterhood sentence. I have slight mixed feelings about Kane's persistence (No means no, dude!), but overall I feel like his approach was acceptable. I definitely got the impression that in another story, he would have accepted only ever being friends if that's all Summer was down for. Like Summer mentioned, he was pretty much the only person she knew who would let things drop when it was obvious she didn't want to talk about them.

Overall this was a light and sweet teenage romance. It's exactly the type of romance I'd want my daughter to read because Kane is the type of guy I'd want her to date. I'd definitely recommend this if you're looking for a lighthearted read this summer. 4.38976 stars.

A sweet, light romance book for teens, well-written, clean, and very easy to read.

Summer Swanson has been diagnosed with lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease, which means her body turns against itself instead of fighting infections. Summer used to dream of becoming a make-up artist, but now she won’t even sigh up to help with the school play, because what if she has a flare-up, and lets everybody down at a crucial moment. She has also given up her place at a volleyball team as well as her other extra-curricular activities. Summer’s also lost her best friend who betrayed her with Summer’s boyfriend. That’s a lot to take on in a short time, so perhaps she can be excused for trying to sort her feelings on her own. One thing she knows for sure: she doesn’t want to be labelled The sick girl, so she keeps her lupus secret.
Kane is adorable and somewhat accident-prone as far as any sport activity is concerned. He spends a lot of time mastering skateboard tricks with his loyal friends Mark and Abigail, mostly without much success, but with some spectacular falls and a few broken bones. During his trip to the hospital, he meets and talks to Summer, who despite going to the same high-school wasn’t even aware of his existence.
Kane has never been good at anything apart from making people laugh. Will he be able to bring a smile back on Summer’s face? How do you make a beautiful girl like this agree to go out with you? Kane’s mom thinks you have to be romantic and respectful at the same time and things will work out. Luckily, Kane has lots of fantastic ideas and is full of enthusiasm.
Should Summer take a chance on Kane as well as giving herself a chance for happiness despite her disease? Should she keep her lupus a secret from Kane, her new friends, and everybody else at the school? Or is it a recipe for a heartbreak which is going to come sooner or later?

I didn’t know much about lupus before reading this book, but it did make me look it up and reflect on how difficult it must have been for the main character to adjust to her new life situation. It was great to have a main character who is sweet, kind and strong, but not exactly flawless.
I had a slightly harder time with Kane. I thought he was cute, immature and a bit too persistent. After all, Summer did have good reasons to keep her distance. I would have preferred them being friends for longer time, so that Summer would have had a chance to get to know him better, which would have made her burgeoning feelings for Kane more plausible. As it was, were these feelings for Kane or for the sense of normality that had been missing for her life since her diagnosis?
I can wholeheartedly recommend this book as a light enjoyable summer read and I will definitely be checking out other titles in this new series.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC provided in exchange for an honest opinion.

Thank you to the publisher via Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Something I'm Good At focuses on the two main characters Summer and her love interests Kane, alternating between their point of views we get insight into both of their lives and Summer's journey with Lupus.

Something I'm Good At was a a sweet, YA romance; Summer was navigating her way through a new diagnosis and Kane was a bit of a klutz who was quite persistent when it came to Summer and starting a relationship with her.

The beginning is what mainly made me reduce my rating, Kane was a little too persistent and infuriating for me, he didn't know the meaning of the word no and came across as quite immature. As the story progressed and their friendship grew I began to enjoy it.

Overall, this book was a quick, easy and well written book.

This book was just ok. I wasn't sold on either of the main characters but I did like the side characters better actually. Kane was the only main character I ended up caring about because of how loyal he was but one of the reasons why I didn't like him was because he went on and on about having a crush on Summer for two years but he even admitted he didn't even really know her.

It just felt like one of the instant love plots.

I get the fact that it's high school, teenagers are going to have crushes for no reason sometimes. I still liked the friendships more in this book.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This had no impact on my thoughts, my thoughts are my own.

Something I’m Good At tackles a teenage girl’s journey through coping with living life with lupus. Add in the super sweet hero and we have the perfect beginnings of a YA novel. I feel like we saw Summer grow and heal notably, but Kane was sort of flat. With it being Dual POV I was yearning for more character arc for him since we saw his perspective so often. Had the author only written from Summer’s perspective I don’t think it would have bothered me so much. The secondary characters were also hit and miss. Abigail offered a good supporting role whereas Mark felt easily expendable. The book has a great message and has the feels of a perfectly classical and wholesome YA novel, it is just missing some of the extra detail to make this book great.

This book was cute! Having a character with lupus was actually really nice to see someone with a chronic illness represented in a book.

My first reaction after reading this book can be summarized in one word: AWWW (sigh). What a lovely and cute book. You just gotta love Kane, who is just like an over eager puppy, with floppy limps and falling all over his own legs. And still waggling his tail and looking adorable.
And you can't help but feel sympathy for Summer. The good girl, who had it all and now is struggling with her life, since she was diagnosed with lupus. Acting up like a teenager and not willing to surrender to the fact that she has to change her life. And Caroline has done an outstanding job of showing how an autoimmune disease has an enormous impact on the life of a teenager. But she also kept the tone light and the laughter flowing (with the help of Kane).
So, in all, a wonderful cozy read. Not too heavy, but interesting none the same. Well done, four out of five stars from me and a special thank you to Netgalley for providing the arc.

I want to thank Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really loved this book.
It was such a cute romance I loved these characters.
The fact summer had lupus was dealt with in an amazing way and I have to give props to the author for that.
What I loved most was the fact summer never let her illness get her down. Some books like this can be all about this illness but this was refreshing because it was all about a sick girl making the most out of her life.

4 stars

Liana 4 stars
Something I'm good at by Caroline Andrus is my first book read from the author and was a fresh and enjoyable read.
The story centres around teenagers and their courses and their life in high-school, which is not always easy for everyone especially when they get to discover that an illness has turned their life upside down and they have to adapt.
Summer prefers to be alone and close the door to her heart by staying away from old friends and extra curricular activity for school as she can barely cope with her new life and she doesn't want to be a burden for anyone, but then comes along Kane, some will say he's an adrenaline junky for getting so many times to the ER with a broken bone or injury but I think he's just a normal teen. There's a beautiful friendship development between them and I enjoyed their story.
A fast paced young love story with a twist that reminds us that nobody is perfect and everyone around us carry a burden inside even if they want to hide or protect us from heartbreak.

I gave this a fair try, but it just wasn't for me. I think the story has a lot of potential, but the writing felt a little clunky - a lot of telling instead of showing - and I just never got really emotionally invested. I guess maybe since I am an adult with a family of my own,, it's also possible that I am not relating to YA as much anymore. Also, I really appreciate the representation of a main character with an autoimmune disease.

HUGE thanks to you to NetGalley for giving me an Arc for this book.

This book is a perfect YA romance to add some fluff to a summer reading list. It's a short book that's well written, had great characters, and really like one of those classic teen romance movies like the ones Summer loves.

The book is told to dual Point Of View switching between the main character Summer and the love interests Kane. The main fear I have with dual POV is that the plot will repeat its;f but this is never to case with Something I'm Good at and I love it I get to see some teen love story told in different perspectives.

The characters are also great in the book. The friendships that have seemed real and didn't seem forced. Then there was the banter between not just Kane and Summer but Kane and his friends as well. It was fun to read and flowed so well. This book also gives you a look at what it's like for someone diagnosed with Lupus and the series of medications, soreness, and the fear of how a simple fever can be deadly without making their life seem gloomy. I also liked how the book normalizes those from the LGBTQ+ community and didn't treat them any different for any other charter in the book.

I think that the only complaint I had about this book would be that some things felt as though they were left unresolved in this book or just want to be touched on. The plot also seems rushed to in some places.

Something I'm Good At focuses on two main characters, switching between their point of views to tell the story of their relationship. First we start with Kane, a guy who is very prone to accidents and has broken more bones in his body than his stunt double dad has in his whole career. Kane enjoys trying something even at the risk of a major failure which is how we find him at the beginning of the book, ready to take on a new challenge with disastrous results. But maybe the disaster is exactly what he is meant to do to finally get his chance with the girl he has been crushing on for years.

In comes Summer, the girl of Kane's dreams even though they have only ever had one interaction with each other years ago and she doesn't seem to recall him being at her school. Summer has recently been diagnosed with Lupus and her whole life has turned upside down. Between the new view on her life (not very optimistic) and the fact that her best friend and boyfriend shared a kiss behind her back, Summer is planning on taking this year solo, but Kane has other plans for them after their chance encounter at Urgent Care.

Both characters have enough likability to keep me reading the story to find out how their relationship turns out, but often times I found myself thinking that Kane seemed rather repetitive and maybe not completely fleshed out. Many times throughout the book, Kane would refer to Summer as being beautiful or an angel and focused a lot on her looks even after getting to know the girl inside of her. I think I would've liked to see his internal dialogue shift a little more from the physical looks to more about the girl he is actually getting to know. Yes of course he is still physically attracted to her and that can be mentioned but I felt like it was a little crazy how often she was referred to as being beautiful as if that meant more than what she was really like.

Summer, I think for the most part, is pretty realistic to what a teenager would be thinking and feeling after being diagnosed with pretty much any disease. She's afraid to get close to others in case something should happen to her and doesn't want to put that burden on anyone else. Of course with not telling anyone about her diagnosis, she puts herself at risk by overdoing it. Which again I think is pretty realistic. A lot of people, not just teenagers, would rather bunker down and be on their own when something life changing like that happens to them. I felt like the author really handled her character development really well and had a pretty good balance of maintaining that easy going feel while still having a topic that's a little heavier.

Overall, the book was a quick and easy read, but I wasn't fully invested in the characters and their stories.

My inner Sweet Valley High pre-teen fan loved this book. It was a light read, kind of reminded me a little bit of the books that I read as a young girl, I would have loved to have read this book, and I would have loved the characters and the light romance.

This was a cute book, easy to read, good world building I don't think the characters were too believable as far as how they acted, his zero boundaries, the tattoo, and how she reacted to her diagnosis, I read a lot of Lureline Mcdaniel (I totally butchered that name i have to google the spelling) and she wrote about teenagers who got terminal type diagnosis's that reacted with a little bit less theatrics than she reacted to lupus.

Overall I really enjoyed it, I would read the other ones that come out.

I thought this was a cute beach read Kane got the girl of his dreams and it was cute and fluffy but it also has a deep meaning with the lupus the girl suffers from and as someone who knows someone who has lupus you see how it does effect people but there are many cute moments In this one and I am happy that I received this Arc thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for this gem

Accident-prone Kane finally gets the perfect chance to talk to Summer, the girl of his dreams, when they meet by chance at urgent care. However, Summer is dealing with being diagnosed with lupus, and has pushed all her old friends and interests to the side to hide her illness. Still, Kane has made up his mind, and he won't give up pursuing her for anything, even if he knows she's keeping secrets from him.

This was a cute, quick read, but honestly the premise and execution--the way that Kane wouldn't give up when Summer was, at first, clearly not interested, but of course she falls for him eventually because his persistence is just so cute--rubbed me the wrong way. The author mentioned in the afterward that she wanted to write teens the way they actually are, and that Kane is supposed to be immature, but I hope that parents these days are teaching their kids more about acceptable boundaries and that it IS normal for teens to respect girls or boys when they indicate that they aren't interested. I'm not going to say this book has no place on my shelves, because it's just a cute, clean, uncomplicated romance, and I know kids in my community will enjoy both that and the added element of Summer having a chronic illness. But I don't personally enjoy romance stories that reinforce the trope that persistence means you're going to succeed in romance, and, in this case, it frankly creeped me out.

I don't know anything about Lupus or how it presents as a teenager, but I smiled a lot during then sweet love story.