Calonita offers a quintessential feel-good read, from Sam’s earliest crush on the camp’s gorgeous bad boy to her gradual realization that good men are the best boyfriends from her initial jealous encounter with the camp director’s daughter to their forced, uneasy truce and from her early video postcards back home to her ultimate Sleepaway Girls testament to the camp season.

By the end of the summer, Sam acquires an arch-enemy, as well as three best buds (the Sleepaway Girls) and a gorgeous boyfriend. She ends up as a counselor-in-training at Whispering Pines, where she gets to participate in all camp activities while assisting the counselors with the younger campers. Sex: just kissing, talk of kissing, and the girls crushing on how hot the guys look.After her best friend attaches herself to Samantha’s first boyfriend, Sam is determined to spend her summer elsewhere. Jen Calonita has a series of books, starting with Secrets of my Hollywood Life, that are similarly clean, and follow the life of a teenage, Hollywood star. It took an idea (summer camp filled with mixed-sex teenagers in charge of younger campers) and made it its own story. By the end of the summer, Sam has made some great friends, learned that sometimes she needs to put herself first, and scored a cute boyfriend. There’s a massive mess-hall food fight, pranks, sneaking out at night, and even an isolation cabin. This book is filled with everything you’d expect to find in a camp book about a teenage girl growing up. Throw into the mix two boys who both flirt with Sam when she has no idea how to flirt back - since her only boyfriend was in sixth grade, and she isn’t sure if he even counts since all they did was hold hands walking between classes. Sam instantly makes some friends, and even more quickly, an enemy, in the camp director’s daughter, Ashley. It only gets worse when she shows up and finds out the rest of the CITs (counselors in training), counselors and most of the campers have been coming to the camp since they were kids. She loves kids and babysitting, but having never been to summer camp before, she’s a little bit nervous. She does something totally out of character, signing up to be a counselor in training at a summer camp two and a half hours away from home. Sam Montgomery’s best friend, with whom she’s done everything since fifth grade, has a new boyfriend, and Sam doesn’t want to be the third person in their twosome all summer.

Sleepaway Girls by Jen Calonita