The Book That Reminded Me How Important It Is To Let People In, Even When It's Hard

  I loved A Cold Summer by Gwen Cole. It's the perfect light romance with a mysterious twist. It reminded me of The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger but with a distinctly YA storyline. And really, who doesn't love a story about first love?  

Kale Jackson is a sharpshooter in World War II... but he's also a teenager in the present day, silently battling PTSD. His time jumps are sudden and uncontrollable, and he lives in constant fear that one of them will be his last. He knows how the war ends, and he knows how he meets his end in it. But when his childhood friend Harper returns, something shifts. For the first time, Kale feels a reason to fight to stay grounded in the present.  

Cold Summer is a reminder that emotional pain doesn't stay in one place or at one time. It can follow you and quietly shape everything you do. Keeping things bottled up doesn't force them to go away. Kale's PTSD doesn't disappear when he jumps through time, and that reflects how trauma can linger, even when everything around you changes.   

But also? Love, or even just real support, can steady you when everything feels like it's slipping out of control. Kale had to stop running from his grief and start facing it. And isn't that when healing truly begins?  

-Lauren