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My Summer Vacation | 
| Author: Hannah R. Goodman
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $11.95
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Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 1547556
Media: Paperback
Edition: 0
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 144
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 0.5
ISBN: 0595394302
EAN: 9780595394302
ASIN: 0595394302
Publication Date: May 19, 2006
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
My Summer Vacation is about loss, recovery, and coming to terms with the imperfectionsof our family, our friends, and our selves. Below is a brief summary of My Summer Vacation. Sixteen-year-old, self-help book junky Maddie Hickman is desperately seeking solace from her sophomore year of high school, a year of broken hearts, torn friendships, and family secrets revealed. Thanks to a position as a CIT (counselor-in-training) at Jonahs Rock, a hippy, artsy-fartsy summer camp, as her Jewish Martha Stewart mother calls it, solace has been foundor so she thinks. Instead of a relaxing summer at the Pub Shop writing short stories and poems, recovering from a terrible breakup with her first love and her familys struggle with her alcoholic sister, Maddie finds herself in the middle of more drama. First, theres new fellow Pub Shop CIT Noah, who came to camp to recover from the death of his girlfriend. In an uncomfortable twist of fate, Maddie happens to be the spitting image of his girlfriend who was killed months before camp by a drunk driver. Then, Maddies long-time camp crew is ripped apart by lies and betrayal, and Maddie must choose between her friends. And finally, she forms an unlikely friendship with a new camper who suffers not only from Tourette syndrome, but also from family dysfunction worse than her own. Yet, its this relationship with Brian that helps her to forgive and also accept her own family and friends and, most importantly, herselfimperfections and all.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A good read for acquiring strength May 18, 2007
Reader Views (Austin, Texas)
Reviewed by Erin Keith (age 17) for Reader Views (5/07)
This book is full of inspiration. Its main character, Maddie Hickman, is just a regular teenager who faces many of the same problems we all go through or at least know about. From alcoholics to drug users and those with tormenting pasts, there are a lot of bad things in our lives. However, with the bad comes some good and this novel demonstrates both aspects.
Maddie goes to a camp for the summer that is filled with fun and good memories. She goes there to get away from the bad things that happened in her life over the last year. She promises to herself that at camp she will relax and live in the moment. After a tough breakup and her sister's struggle with alcohol, she begins to enjoy her life. But when she gets to camp and finds that she is the splitting image of the new CIT's dead girlfriend, and she meets a camper who suffers from Tourette syndrome with a family that is more dysfunctional than her own. Her summer is torn apart with drama and tragic moments, but in the end she learns to accept it in order to move on.
This book would be a good read for those who are going through tough times and I would recommend "My Summer Vacation" to those who want to learn how to pull through and be strong.
 My Summer Vacation: Worthy Sequel March 31, 2007
Lyda Phillips (Silver Spring, MD United States)
My Summer Vacation (iUniverse, ISBN: 0-595-39430-2, $11.95), Hannah's Goodman's second novel starring Maddie Hickman, builds on the fabulous character established in Goodman's award-winning debut young adult-novel, My Sister's Wedding (iUniverse, ISBN: 0-595-31265-9, $10.95). Goodman is mistress of teenage preoccupations, angst and relentless fumbling toward self-knowledge. In My Summer Vacation, Maddie returns to her beloved summer camp, still reeling from the end of a bad relationship and her sister's alcoholic meltdown. She finds comfort in her old friends and more than comfort in a new love. But even good things must come to an end and Maddie finds herself once again cast adrift at the end of the novel. Stronger, wiser, maybe, but still looking for a port in the storm of her life. Here's hoping we hear more from Maddie soon!!
Wow! March 11, 2007
A. Gaudreau (Bristol, RI)
What can I say about this book? I didn't want to put it down. I related to the subject matter and setting through my own experience as a kid who went to camp for many summers. The book also surprised me in many ways. Just as soon as you thought you knew what was going to happen...boom...so unpredictable. I also very much enjoyed the e-mail/letter inserts. It provided an additional peek into the characters lives. I can't wait for the next one!!!!
The Enablers of Our Youth March 6, 2007
Floyd M. Orr (Austin, TX United States)
Maddie Hickman, now sixteen, continues her adventures at a summer camp of the creative arts. Translation: after My Sister's Wedding, Maddie returns to the artsy-fartsy summer camp for nerds, where she is a Counselor in Training for the first time this year. She is struggling to get over a relationship that has ended rather badly, and she is hell-bent on ignoring any new, cute boys she might meet at camp. She just wants to enjoy her first year as a CIT among her clique composed of other CITs. Of course none of these teenagers is yet ready to display his or her expected complement of good behaviors. The guys fight over the girls, the girls start their own catfights over boys, and everybody is mad at everybody else at least once! Boiling underneath the surface of all these hormonal emotions are a cluster of unfortunate circumstances involving alcoholism and other addictive personality traits. The kids at camp are not the addicts. These are the traits of certain parents, siblings, and love interests. The kids are the enablers.
Hannah R. Goodman has composed a good, short, entertaining novel based on a variety of somewhat depressing subjects. The focus of the story concerns the explanation of how these young characters had become enablers of the destructive behavior patterns of people close to them. The teens learn how to cope with a reality different than what they had always perceived to be the truth. They learn how to enter this new reality with their eyes wide open in the future, leaving behind their debilitating roles as enablers. Maddie learns about Tourette's Syndrome, as well as drug addictions outside the alcohol arena, and she faces the things she cannot change.
The author's second novel has brought Maddie Hickman through another stage of her young life. There are lessons for teenagers and adults in this book written for both age brackets. Don't be put off by its somber elements because My Summer Vacation is a fun book to read. The tone is always relatively light and appropriate for both teens and their parents. The only thing keeping it from earning five stars is a few too many typos for its brief length. This is an especially good novel for a teenager who has lost a cherished person in her life to death, affliction, or a destructive behavior pattern.
Subject handled with insight & sensitivity October 5, 2006
Joanne Carnevale (Providence, RI USA)
Years ago, in a Children's Lit class, I gave a presentation on kid's books that dealt with the theme of death, from picture books through YA. I wish I'd had this book then. My Summer Vacation is a "must read" for parents, teachers, librarians, grief counselors, and anyone else who may have to make recommendations or help a kid work through a devastating loss. That point aside, it's a great read. Ms. Goodman's descriptive writing brings scenes to life, and her adroit character development makes us care for and/or identify with Maddie, her friends, and their situations. The secondary themes, such as that of teen drama over boyfriend/girlfriend issues, and the interesting handling of a boy with Tourette's Syndrome, make this book eminently accessible to teens, and adults who recall those years. There's humor here, too, rounding out a multi-faceted story that can proudly follow Goodman's first Maddie installment, My Sister's Wedding.
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