The Summer Love Strategy Review: Is It Worth Reading?

Verdict: A warm, very queer YA summer story about two best friends who make a pact to find love and find each other, held back by flat writing that many readers say kept them at arm’s length.

Best for: Teens and adults who want trans, demisexual and neurodivergent rep in a gentle friends-to-lovers romance, and who care more about representation and comfort than about sharp prose.

Heat level: ★☆☆☆☆ (1/5: young adult, ages 12 to 18, with no sexual content mentioned by reviewers)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.3/5: a 3.44 Goodreads average, with 38% of readers landing on three stars)

Tropes: Friends to lovers, summer pact, best friends, trans love interest, demisexual heroine, found family, coming out, Pride, beach summer.

The Summer Love Strategy is Ray Stoeve’s 2024 young adult friends-to-lovers sapphic romance from Amulet Books, and it follows Hayley, who’s always crushing on someone, and her best friend Talia, who almost never is, as they plan a summer of rom-com moments and slowly realize the person they want is standing right next to them.

It sits at 3.44 across 473 Goodreads ratings and 3.56 across 305 StoryGraph reviews, and School Library Journal recommended it warmly. Readers almost all love who’s in it. Where they split is how it’s written. That gap is the thing to know before you start.

What Is The Summer Love Strategy About?

This is a low-stakes YA summer romance, and the season sets the rhythm. The beach, Pride, a MUNA concert and a party give the book a checklist structure, and each stop is another chance for one of the girls to try love and see if it fits. It’s a gentle book. The conflict is mostly internal.

Hayley is a femme lesbian with ADHD and anxiety, and her crushes never like her back. Talia is a trans girl who is autistic and thinks she may be demisexual and demiromantic, so she rarely has crushes but still wants romance. Their friend group is full of queer and neurodivergent teens, and Hayley’s younger sibling comes out as nonbinary over the summer.

What Makes This Sapphic Friends-to-Lovers Romance Work

The representation: The thing readers praise most. Trans, demisexual, nonbinary, autistic, ADHD and a diverse cast, all treated as ordinary. Several reviewers say it never feels forced.
A trans girl as the love interest: Readers point out how rare that is in YA, and one hoped trans teen girls would feel seen by it.
The coming-out scenes: A reviewer teared up at Hayley’s sibling coming out as nonbinary, and SLJ notes both leads come out to their families.
Supportive people: SLJ singles out supportive families and a friend group that looks out for each other’s needs.
Summer comfort: 83% of StoryGraph reviewers call it lighthearted, and readers describe it as cute and healing for their inner teen.

Book Synopsis

Hayley has a crush problem. She falls fast and often, and the girls she falls for never fall back. Talia, her best friend, has the opposite problem. Crushes barely happen to her, and she’s started to wonder if romance is something she’ll ever feel the way other people do. Both of them want the kind of love they’ve seen in movies.

So at the start of summer they make a plan. They’ll chase every rom-com moment they can find: a day at the beach, Pride, a MUNA concert, a big party. Somewhere along the way, each of them is supposed to meet someone. Hayley has a target in mind. Talia isn’t sure what she’s looking for, but she’s willing to try.

The plan keeps going sideways. Hayley’s family is changing around her, Talia is figuring out what attraction means for her, and the moments that feel most like a rom-com keep happening when it’s just the two of them. The question by the end of summer is whether they’re brave enough to risk their friendship on it.

My Review

The best thing about this book is how normal it makes things that YA still treats as rare. A trans girl gets to be the love interest. A teen gets to wonder out loud whether she’s demisexual and demiromantic without it being a crisis. Neurodivergent friends look after each other. Readers who’ve waited for this kind of cast love it, and they say so.

The second strength is warmth. The summer plan gives the book a fun shape, the families are mostly supportive, and the coming-out scenes land. SLJ praised the easy dialogue and the sweet friends-to-girlfriends romance.

The problem, and the most repeated complaint, is the writing. Several reviewers who gave it two stars say the same thing: they loved the representation and couldn’t connect with the prose. They call it flat, say the side characters feel bland, and one says the teens sound like how adults imagine teenagers. A couple of readers found it slow or boring, and one 4-star reviewer wished the early chapters showed the girls’ bond instead of telling us about it. The sharpest criticism comes from one reviewer who felt the characters were introduced like a checklist of identities, with dialogue that didn’t sound natural.

The expectation to reset is energy. The cover suggests a breezy, funny summer rom-com. What’s inside is softer and quieter, more about feelings and identity than about banter or big romantic beats. If you want comfort and rep, that’s a plus. If you want sparks, calibrate.

My honest note: A kind, important book that’s easier to admire than to fall for. If the cast is why you’re here, you’ll likely be happy, and if flat prose kills a book for you, sample it first.

Element	In The Summer Love Strategy
Central relationship	Hayley and Talia: a lesbian with ADHD and her autistic, trans, possibly demisexual best friend
Core tropes	Friends to lovers, summer pact, coming out, found family, trans love interest
Setting	A present-day summer of beach days, Pride and concerts
Heat level	1/5: young adult, no sexual content reported
Series	Standalone, with a hopeful, happy-for-now ending
Content notes	On-page panic attacks, anxiety, coming out, mental health struggles

How Spicy Is The Summer Love Strategy?

It isn’t. Abrams lists it for ages 12 to 18, romance.io doesn’t index it, which is normal for YA, and no reviewer we read mentions any sexual content. The romance is about recognizing feelings for your best friend, and Talia’s questions about demisexuality keep the focus on connection rather than physical attraction.

The heavier material is emotional. One reviewer lists on-page panic attacks and anxiety as content warnings, and both leads come out to their families. Nothing else is flagged. For other YA sapphic summer reads, Cool for the Summer and Tell Me How You Really Feel both run a little warmer at 2/5.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you want trans and ace-spectrum rep in a romance, you love best friends falling for each other, you like gentle, comforting summer books, and a big queer friend group sounds like a treat.

You may want to skip it if: flat or tell-heavy prose pulls you out, you want snappy banter and drama, you need a fast plot, or identity-forward dialogue feels forced to you.

In short: great rep and a soft heart, delivered in plain prose.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

This is a quiet book with a loyal audience. Amulet Books published it on May 7, 2024, with an ARC push on NetGalley and Edelweiss, and many of its early reviews come from that. School Library Journal recommended it for grade 7 and up. We didn’t find a BookTok moment or a Reddit thread. It’s on Kindle Unlimited, and the Recorded Books audiobook, narrated by Sophie Amoss, runs 7 hours and 52 minutes. On Amazon it holds 4.0 stars across 19 ratings.

Prefer audio? Listen to The Summer Love Strategy on Libro.fm, the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The representation comes first, by a long way. “Diverse” is the recurring word, and readers list trans, nonbinary, autistic, ADHD and demi rep with obvious delight. Next is the friends-to-lovers romance, which readers call sweet and precious. Third is the comfort: the supportive families and friend group. On StoryGraph, 73% say it’s character-driven, and the top moods are lighthearted, emotional and hopeful.

What readers argue about and complain about: The writing, above everything. Flat, telling instead of showing, and side characters who feel thin come up again and again in the lower ratings, often from readers who wanted to love it. Second: pace. A few found it slow, and one reviewer was done with it by the halfway mark. Third: the dialogue around identity, which one reviewer found forced, and another said made the teens sound written by adults. The real split is exactly that. Most readers think the rep feels natural, and a vocal few think it reads like a checklist.

The standalone question worth asking first: It’s a standalone with a hopeful ending. If you like Stoeve’s voice, Arden Grey is their most-rated earlier book, with a stronger 4.00 Goodreads average across 263 ratings.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Talia demisexual in The Summer Love Strategy?

She thinks she may be. School Library Journal describes Talia as feeling she may be demisexual and demiromantic, and her search for connection is a central thread.

Is The Summer Love Strategy spicy?

No. It’s a 1/5. It’s a YA book for ages 12 to 18, and no reviewer we read mentions sexual content.

Is the love interest trans?

Yes. Talia is a trans girl, and she and Hayley are best friends who become girlfriends.

Is there an audiobook of The Summer Love Strategy?

Yes. Sophie Amoss narrates the Recorded Books edition, which runs 7 hours and 52 minutes.

Is The Summer Love Strategy on Kindle Unlimited?

Yes, the Kindle edition is currently included with Kindle Unlimited.

If You Loved The Summer Love Strategy, Read These Next

For another YA sapphic summer, Cool for the Summer has more drama and a little more heat. For an ace-spectrum pair in a YA rom-com, Love Points to You is the closest match. For a sharper-edged YA romance with more banter, try Tell Me How You Really Feel. There’s more on the ace and demisexual sapphic books page and in our Book Reviews.

The Bottom Line

The Summer Love Strategy wants to give queer, trans and neurodivergent teens a soft summer love story of their own. The representation, the coming-out moments and the supportive cast work. The flat prose, the slow stretches and the identity-heavy dialogue don’t land for everyone. If seeing this cast on the page matters to you, it’s worth reading. Check The Summer Love Strategy on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, The Summer Love Strategy ranks as a gentle, rep-first YA friends-to-lovers romance. It’s warm and affirming, held back by plain writing. Read it for the cast and the comfort rather than the prose.