Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - The Summer Place

So many of the characters made so many choices that then made it hard to like them. Also, some of the plot points were truly wild - like, made me feel both uncomfortable and annoyed because it seemed too far, yet also a little intrigued despite that. This novel definitely mentioned Covid a lot but it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it might going in - probably because there was no discussion of any of the characters themselves falling ill or personally losing someone to it. For example, one character is a nurse and zero percent of the book addressed what her experience during Covid would have been like as a nurse. There were two parts of the book that made me cry because they were truly sad (heartbreaking, really), but actually had zero connection to Covid. Jennifer Weiner’s ability to write in an an engaging way is very strong and her style of writing draws me in. Plus, I did enjoy all the descriptions of Cape Cod summers. Ultimately, I wanted to keep reading to see what happened. I got to the epilogue and was mad at first because it seemed like there was no way the book was going to wrap everything up in a way that I would feel satisfied with, but then it mostly did. The final moments of the book were particularly well crafted.

The performance of Sutton Foster on the audiobook narration, I would give 4-5 stars! Definitely increased my enjoyment of this novel.

Content Warnings

ukponge's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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lexa's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful mysterious

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is an average “beach read” type book. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it, I was invested enough to push through to the ending.

You might like it if you are into multi-generational stories with lots of characters, multiple points of view, big drama around every corner, and so. many. coincidences.

Content Warnings

okiecozyreader's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

I read this book with The Gloss for their summer Bookcation event. My first book of hers was Mrs. Everything, and I really loved getting to know Jennifer Weiner during Covid, when she just chatted with people from her closet. She seems like one of the most genuine of people.

In the conversation today, she mentioned that over Covid, she saw an article of a mom trying to do her job, take care of the kids and the house from home - while the husband worked in the office. She felt like we should be further along in how mothers are treated - to a more equal parenting relationship. So one of the messages she shows in this book is that how women still can’t have it all like men can - and how women are still treated to different expectations - in having families, in being a good mother, and all that entails.

So, this book dives into a complicated family and examines each relationship. Do the choices of a mother who doesn’t want to be a mother make her a bad person - a bad mother? What about affairs or inappropriate relationships based on lies and sneaky behavior? How quickly do we judge (especially) women for the way they are or aren’t mothers?

We meet the whole extended family - the grandmother (who had penned a book that made her wealthy) and grandfather, their two children - the daughter (who married a man with a child; and we also meet her mother); and the son (who married a woman also with a child that is not his), and then we get to know these grandchildren to various degrees, and other people the adults have relationships with. I asked her if it was difficult to keep track of all the people and she said that if you have visualized each person so they are identifiable to you, it’s just like knowing people in life.

I thought it was an interesting look at a family. I do think I enjoyed it more after hearing her discuss thoughts about it. I would recommend finding a talk with her, especially if books about affairs bother you. In the Acknowledgments, she says she wanted the story to have a feeling between a “Noël Coward farce and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where the pairings are driven by otherworldly interference. I also knew I wanted to write about the ways that quarantine exposed the fault lines in relationships and the buried foundations of money and priceless and sacrifice that hold up our lives, whether or not we acknowledge that they are there.” Some of these being her own. She mentioned she has had a nanny and housecleaned, like a character in the book - and the judgements and privilege of things like this also.

So there are many Covid moments in the book - people cohabitating after not knowing each other long, families working from home, descriptions of wearing masks, and feelings about first entries back into society.

— quotes

“She hadn’t wanted to ask Ruby if her biological mother, Annette, was planning on coming to the wedding. She still couldn’t understand a mother leaving her child. She tried not to judge.” P 185

“I hoped you’d want to come here with your own kids, so they could spend their summers together.” She smiled sadly. “But I think that was my vision of summer, not yours.” P289

“As she spoke, she discovered that she was angry at her mother, angry in a way she’d never let herself acknowledge. [Her mother] had pulled it off perfectly. She’d had a life as an artist, and had then been able to comfortably, happily set that life aside.” P297

“Marriages can survive a little resentment,” Ronnie said, “Marriages can survive a lot of things.” P300

“Things had worked out for the best. But you couldn’t always say all of that… Not to well-meaning strangers or curious colleagues or the person on the mag beside yours in a yoga class. At least, a woman couldn’t. The world made space for men who left; who walked away from wives and children, sometimes more than once.” P312

“…but at least Ruby hadn’t grown up with a mother who was miserable, a mother who’d taught her daughter, by example, that sacrifice and self-abnegation were what made a woman a good wife and mother. A little selfishness could be healthy.” P323

Content Warnings

phylflemham's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Mixed feelings about this book. There’s a lot to unpack with a lot of characters so if you’re into that, you will probably like it. This novel explores family and identity in multiple ways. I found myself thinking “is it possible that one family has all these concerns about paternity??” But in this case, yes, they do. That was too much for me… there’s lots of trigger warnings in here too. So while this novel has depth and explores a lot of family dynamics, that wasn’t really what I was interested in. If you’re into that- you would love it!

Content Warnings

randina's review against another edition

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tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

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