Reviews with content warning for Death - The Summer Place: A Novel

Multiple POV, dual timeline family drama with characters you genuinely want to know more about. The story is centered around Ruby and her somewhat shocking wedding announcement to her boyfriend she met during the pandemic (the covid references set the stage for the family dynamics). Her wedding brings along a cast of characters including her birth mom, her dad, her step mom, her step grandmother, her fiance, his mom, and her uncle. Sounds like a lot but all of these characters have connections that may surprise you. The short chapters paired with the building story lines make for a really interesting read.

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kimmykelly's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

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theverycraftyvegan's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

A perfectly hatable family filled with perfectly hatable people. Even the characters who weren’t awful weren’t that great.

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kdailyreads's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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.

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mandalacb19's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This was a beautiful story about a family and a place and how the two are connected. I adored the characters and found the story compelling and rich. This will be another best seller for Jennifer Weiner, I'm sure. The settings were vivid, and the emotion was beautifuly written and illustrated.

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