debsd's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
ruthie_the_librarian's review against another edition
4.0
I really liked this book, a lot. The characters are fun and interesting and different and challenging. One character in particular almost made me shout out loud 'BUT THAT'S EXACTLY HOW I FEEL!' when talking about child-induced sleep-deprivation. It was as if the author had climbed in my head and stolen my thoughts. I loved the structure of the story, written around all these many different characters in the same family, all going on slightly different journeys, all at different points in their lives. Very enjoyable. Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance copy.
abby_writes's review against another edition
4.0
Immersive novel of an Irish family of some renown and their defining summer. Each chapter is told from a single family member's POV, and they're all eccentric and creative and abrasive in their own ways. I normally don't go in on multiple POV novels, but I really liked this one.
briarsreviews's review against another edition
5.0
The Long, Hot Summer by Kathleen MacMahon is one of the loveliest books I've read this year.
Family drama, generations of Irish men & ladies, comedy, tragedy and character growth. What more could a girl ask for in novel? Not much else!!
I was truly surprised by how amazing this book was, considering it has so few reviews. It's by far one of my favourite reads and it will sit high atop my shelves. Kathleen MacMahon has a beautiful sense of writing style and her prose is just magnificent. I can't get enough of this book and I want more by her.
This story follows the MacEntees - an Irish family with four generations of men and women trying to deal with a long, hot summer. Deidre and Manus were once married, but Manus is now with his male lover and at Deidre is grasping with the fact that she is now "old" and in her 80s. Alma, Acushla and MacDara are their children and they all have to grasp with their own choices too. Alma and Acushla married twin brothers, and somehow their lives are echoing each other. The girls' children, Constance and Nora, are also dealing with their own lives choices. The entire book follows these characters one by one and lets us into a world of family drama, insanity and growth.
I would have loved to read a book like this in high school, when you have the opportunity to pick apart lines and themes within the story. I loved seeing how each character interacted and how life didn't end up the way they quite expected it. Lots of humors is thrown in with the tragedy, family drama is addressed in a very real way, and this book shows just how tough life can be (yet also how fruitful and silly we can make it). In summary, it's all about perspective.
Kathleen does a great job showing the differences between the generations and how they interact with one another. The conflict felt so real and the book felt like it could have been a non-fiction retelling (but it's not!). I really want to read more by Kathleen because she has a real knack for story telling. I was so attached to these characters and I was furious that this book had to end (and in the way that it did! I cried! I never cry at books!).
I HIGHLY recommend this book if you love fictional dramas, stories set in Ireland, and books about being a family.
Five out of five stars! I would give it more if I could.
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
Family drama, generations of Irish men & ladies, comedy, tragedy and character growth. What more could a girl ask for in novel? Not much else!!
I was truly surprised by how amazing this book was, considering it has so few reviews. It's by far one of my favourite reads and it will sit high atop my shelves. Kathleen MacMahon has a beautiful sense of writing style and her prose is just magnificent. I can't get enough of this book and I want more by her.
This story follows the MacEntees - an Irish family with four generations of men and women trying to deal with a long, hot summer. Deidre and Manus were once married, but Manus is now with his male lover and at Deidre is grasping with the fact that she is now "old" and in her 80s. Alma, Acushla and MacDara are their children and they all have to grasp with their own choices too. Alma and Acushla married twin brothers, and somehow their lives are echoing each other. The girls' children, Constance and Nora, are also dealing with their own lives choices. The entire book follows these characters one by one and lets us into a world of family drama, insanity and growth.
I would have loved to read a book like this in high school, when you have the opportunity to pick apart lines and themes within the story. I loved seeing how each character interacted and how life didn't end up the way they quite expected it. Lots of humors is thrown in with the tragedy, family drama is addressed in a very real way, and this book shows just how tough life can be (yet also how fruitful and silly we can make it). In summary, it's all about perspective.
Kathleen does a great job showing the differences between the generations and how they interact with one another. The conflict felt so real and the book felt like it could have been a non-fiction retelling (but it's not!). I really want to read more by Kathleen because she has a real knack for story telling. I was so attached to these characters and I was furious that this book had to end (and in the way that it did! I cried! I never cry at books!).
I HIGHLY recommend this book if you love fictional dramas, stories set in Ireland, and books about being a family.
Five out of five stars! I would give it more if I could.
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
uptoolatereading's review against another edition
2.0
Everyone knows the MacAntees, infamous across the whole of Ireland they are no ordinary family. Made up of actors, TV stars and politicians they are always making headlines.
Deirdre the reluctant matriarch has had enough and is planning her own death. Not that any of her family members notice as they are far too wrapped up in their own woes and dilemmas. Her daughter Alma, in particular suffers a horrendous robbery which changes her life forever and that is simply the start of the longest summer ever for the whole clan.
Based on the title alone I was expecting a completely different book from what it actually turned out to be. Rather than a family coming together during the best time of the year, a bunch of self obsessed people are embroiled in their individual dramas oblivious to anything else around them. These people are family in name only and no matter how much I read I did not warm to anyone. There is no story as such, instead the chapters are a dissection of each family member and what a selfish bunch they were.
The book started well as we followed Deirdre leaving her small hometown behind to become an actress. I enjoyed reading about her rise to fame and her hardest role which was that of wife and mother. As such I was intrigued to see how her children had turned out after having parents constantly in the limelight. However the children as adults were not engaging at all. Deirdre’s eldest daughter, Alma started off as a ballsy full of life character, which made for an interesting read, but then she lost all that early on after a terrible incident and never really regained her original personality.
This book is like a British summer - starts off well but then comes to nothing and leaves you disappointed.
Deirdre the reluctant matriarch has had enough and is planning her own death. Not that any of her family members notice as they are far too wrapped up in their own woes and dilemmas. Her daughter Alma, in particular suffers a horrendous robbery which changes her life forever and that is simply the start of the longest summer ever for the whole clan.
Based on the title alone I was expecting a completely different book from what it actually turned out to be. Rather than a family coming together during the best time of the year, a bunch of self obsessed people are embroiled in their individual dramas oblivious to anything else around them. These people are family in name only and no matter how much I read I did not warm to anyone. There is no story as such, instead the chapters are a dissection of each family member and what a selfish bunch they were.
The book started well as we followed Deirdre leaving her small hometown behind to become an actress. I enjoyed reading about her rise to fame and her hardest role which was that of wife and mother. As such I was intrigued to see how her children had turned out after having parents constantly in the limelight. However the children as adults were not engaging at all. Deirdre’s eldest daughter, Alma started off as a ballsy full of life character, which made for an interesting read, but then she lost all that early on after a terrible incident and never really regained her original personality.
This book is like a British summer - starts off well but then comes to nothing and leaves you disappointed.
samstillreading's review against another edition
3.0
OK, I admit it. I started reading The Long, Hot Summer in the middle of a particularly freezing winter week. I was hoping that some of the warmth would transfer to me, huddled under blankets with only my fingers peeking out. I love family stories and I was interested to see how the MacEntees would handle their numerous upheavals over the course of the summer. The story begins with Deirdre, family matriarch, planning a grand party and her death. Basically, her death is a way of one-upping her estranged husband who left her for a man years ago. Manus has said that she’ll live forever, but she’ll prove him wrong! Deirdre is not keen on getting old, on being a faded star of the stage.
Each of the following chapters is told from the perspective of another one of the MacEntees. Alma is the next to tell her story – she’s a highflying journalist, only to be cut down in a random attack at home. Alma has an epiphany and starts to change – stopping dying her hair and moving from television to radio. There’s then the sensation of the year in Ireland as her ex-husband is caught stealing a pepper grinder. Who does he turn to? Alma, of course. Meanwhile, Alma’s sister Acushla has a deep dark secret she’s ready to tell – at the expense of her husband’s political career in Ireland. Both Alma and Acushla’s daughters have their own problems while Manus is now a carer for his lover. Sadly, tragedy strikes again but will this bring the MacEntees closer?
I liked the way The Long, Hot Summer was set out – the long chapters from different characters reminded me of Maeve Binchy’s books (such as Minding Frankie). However, I felt that there was something lost between the chapters, that they were more separate than joined. At times, it was like some of the previous events hadn’t happened. For example, after Acushla goes public with her secret, it doesn’t really flow into the following narrative. I would have thought a big shock like that, given that she was the talking point of Ireland’s media for days, would reverberate more. Perhaps it didn’t do so through the MacEntees to show how disparate they were to each other. Also, some things weren’t spelled out enough for me – what exactly was wrong with Sam? Why has Macdara sequestered himself since his breakdown, and what happened exactly? Given that other events were told in detail, I would have liked to have known more about these too.
Kathleen MacMahon’s writing is excellent and she certainly knows how to tell a story. I haven’t read This is How it Ends, but I’d be interested in doing so, given the stellar reviews for it. I just felt that this story didn’t flow as well as it could have – it seems to start and stop, rather like Manus’s beloved blue Jaguar. Not all the characters were likeable (Deirdre is an enigma that only starts being understandable as the story finishes) which is okay. But the ones I did like, such as Connie and Macdara, didn’t get enough page time to satisfy me. Perhaps fewer characters in greater depth would have made me happier or more reasoning as to why they acted how they did.
The Long, Hot Summer is a good book, but I had the feeling that something was missing to make it a great one.
Thank you to Hachette Australia for the book. My review is honest.
http://samstillreading.wordpress.com
Each of the following chapters is told from the perspective of another one of the MacEntees. Alma is the next to tell her story – she’s a highflying journalist, only to be cut down in a random attack at home. Alma has an epiphany and starts to change – stopping dying her hair and moving from television to radio. There’s then the sensation of the year in Ireland as her ex-husband is caught stealing a pepper grinder. Who does he turn to? Alma, of course. Meanwhile, Alma’s sister Acushla has a deep dark secret she’s ready to tell – at the expense of her husband’s political career in Ireland. Both Alma and Acushla’s daughters have their own problems while Manus is now a carer for his lover. Sadly, tragedy strikes again but will this bring the MacEntees closer?
I liked the way The Long, Hot Summer was set out – the long chapters from different characters reminded me of Maeve Binchy’s books (such as Minding Frankie). However, I felt that there was something lost between the chapters, that they were more separate than joined. At times, it was like some of the previous events hadn’t happened. For example, after Acushla goes public with her secret, it doesn’t really flow into the following narrative. I would have thought a big shock like that, given that she was the talking point of Ireland’s media for days, would reverberate more. Perhaps it didn’t do so through the MacEntees to show how disparate they were to each other. Also, some things weren’t spelled out enough for me – what exactly was wrong with Sam? Why has Macdara sequestered himself since his breakdown, and what happened exactly? Given that other events were told in detail, I would have liked to have known more about these too.
Kathleen MacMahon’s writing is excellent and she certainly knows how to tell a story. I haven’t read This is How it Ends, but I’d be interested in doing so, given the stellar reviews for it. I just felt that this story didn’t flow as well as it could have – it seems to start and stop, rather like Manus’s beloved blue Jaguar. Not all the characters were likeable (Deirdre is an enigma that only starts being understandable as the story finishes) which is okay. But the ones I did like, such as Connie and Macdara, didn’t get enough page time to satisfy me. Perhaps fewer characters in greater depth would have made me happier or more reasoning as to why they acted how they did.
The Long, Hot Summer is a good book, but I had the feeling that something was missing to make it a great one.
Thank you to Hachette Australia for the book. My review is honest.
http://samstillreading.wordpress.com
penny_literaryhoarders's review against another edition
4.0
Really, really enjoyed this one. Every family member starting with the matriarch Deidre tells their story. Everyone is flawed, everyone is broken and hurting in some way and all are on their own paths to redemption and finding a new outlook on life. All of it takes place over the course of one long, hot summer in Ireland. I loved the structure of the book, I loved the individual stories of everyone. This is such a satisfying read and I highly recommend. Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for offering this one!
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