Review Detail

There are books one simply enjoys, and then there are the ones that touch us in unexpected ways and keep us thinking about them long after we’ve turned the last page. A Season for Fireflies is one of the few books that falls into the second category.

Penny is your typical teenager, only not really. She’s dealing with family issues most never have to face. She can’t tell her friends for fear of what they’ll think of her, so she pushes them away instead and finds ones who won’t ask the hard question. In short order she goes from theater nerd to high school royalty, leaving behind a girl she’s hurt and a boy whose love just came at the wrong time. She thinks she’s happy, thinks she’s better off.

When a lightning strike erases the last year of her life, she wakes up wondering why her old friends no longer talk to her and barely knowing her new friends. She finds she must recapture the girl she was without losing the one she had become.

This is a true story of second chances and the intense emotions just seep through the pages. It’s impossible not to be touched by them. Watching Penny fall apart is heartbreaking and watching her pull through is inspiring. She’s incredibly strong. Wes, the boy who can’t seem to fall out of love with her, has very really struggles with trusting her again after she all but abandoned him, but he’s also exactly the kind of person anyone would want by their side during such a traumatic time.

An inspiring and heartfelt story that explores what it means to be young and make mistakes, but to have the courage to know you were wrong and do things differently the second time around.