Quick Premise, I've wanted to make a review for a long time, and today, with this work, I feel that the perfect opportunity has finally come to do just that
I apologize in advance for any mistakes I might make in the writing of this review, and I hope you will enjoy it.

And of course, this review contains some spoilers

The Summer You Were There, at first glance, looks like a normal Yuri romance, but as they say, never judge a book by its cover as the story itself pretty early on makes it known that this isn't a normal romance, but something deeper is being told here.

We follow Shizuku Hoshikawa, the protagonist of this story. From the get-go it's made obvious that she has suffered some sort of trauma, and because of that she doesn't want to keep on going anymore, enter our Deuteragonist Kaori Asaka, who out of nowhere picks Shizuku up, driven by her love of books and convinces her to fake a romantic relationship for the rest of summer.

From here on out, the themes of the story begin to shine, a story that starts off as a normal Yuri, turns into an intricate and beautiful representation of Love and Trust, a representation of how something born out of inconvenience for someone (Shizuku), can turn into something that they cherish and look back on, how by leaning on someone else, you can heal and mend your own pain and troubles, how others can help you see things from another perspective.

That's what captivated me about this work, the themes it explores even as a romance, how this is a story about two girls indirectly saving each other.

Even with the introduction of our side characters, the intentions are quite clear, it's all done to shed light one issue at a time, like Shizuku learning to open up again to her family and to others, Ruri's experience being bullied and Shizuku's guilt over it, the importance of mutual trust when opening up, it's all done to show something, to teach us that dialogue is important, that other people can suffer as a consequence of our actions and words, and that we must learn from our mistakes to truly move forward in life.

For our couple, there is no future, but at least there's a present, and a present time they enjoyed and cherished, a cruel present, but something that must not drag us down, just like Shizuku at the end, we must never forget about the good moments, about the cherished moments with the people we love, even if they might not be with us anymore, a person truly dies only when they are forgotten, and this is a key message at least for me, Love must not turn into sorrow, even if its over, the happiness you felt wasn't fake, it was all real, cherish it forever.

Try things, do things, do not be afraid, if you want to write, write, once again... Just like Shizuku, do not be afraid, you too have something that people might love to hear

I deeply recommend anyone to read and think about the meaning of the story for yourself, you won't regret it, trust me, and I too hope you will enjoy this story just as much as I did.