My Last Summer with Cass, by Mark Crilley

“A good friendship is like a work of art.”

Megan and Cass have been friends forever. Their families vacationed together since they were young, and the two girls could count on seeing each other every summer at the lakeside cabin their parents rented. It was during their time there that Megan and Cass discovered their shared love of art, and it’s where they had their first collaboration and were discovered and encouraged by a woman with an eye for talent.

As the girls get older, their lives change dramatically, and their summers by the lake are just memories. With college choices on the horizon, Megan manages to convince her parents to let her visit Cass in New York City for a couple of weeks, and that time changes how both young women think about themselves, their friendship, and their art.

MY LAST SUMMER WITH CASS by Mark Crilley is gorgeous. The characters have depth and beauty, the art is fantastic, and the story is one that will resonate with both teens and adults. I love Crilley’s illustrations because he manages to tell so much about a character in subtle ways, and this book shows that he’s equally adept with words.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about the plot, but I encourage you to pick up this book. You can read it in one sitting, and then start it all over again to immerse yourself in the illustrations and fully appreciate the beauty of that part of the work. That’s certainly what I did.

I’ll be buying MY LAST SUMMER WITH CASS for the art-loving teens in my world–in part because I don’t want to give up my own copy–and I hope that this departure from his normal style isn’t Crilley’s last.