THE SUMMER PLACE BY JENNIFER WEINER

Jennifer Weiner brings her characters to life in this moving portrait about families and the secrets they keep.

Rating: ★★★★
​Release Date: May 10, 2022
Genre: Women's Fiction. Family Drama. 
Series: None.
Pages: 406 pages
Format: Paperback. Source: ​Publisher.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of That Summer comes another heartfelt and unputdownable novel of family, secrets, and the ties that bind.

When her twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter announces her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, Sarah Danhauser is shocked. But the wheels are in motion. Headstrong Ruby has already set a date (just three months away!) and spoken to her beloved safta, Sarah’s mother Veronica, about having the wedding at the family’s beach house in Cape Cod. Sarah might be worried, but Veronica is thrilled to be bringing the family together one last time before putting the big house on the market.

But the road to a wedding day usually comes with a few bumps. Ruby has always known exactly what she wants, but as the wedding date approaches, she finds herself grappling with the wounds left by the mother who walked out when she was a baby. Veronica ends up facing unexpected news, thanks to her meddling

​sister, and must revisit the choices she made long ago, when she was a bestselling novelist with a different life. Sarah’s twin brother, Sam, is recovering from a terrible loss, and confronting big questions about who he is—questions he hopes to resolve during his stay on the Cape. Sarah’s husband, Eli, who’s been inexplicably distant during the pandemic, confronts the consequences of a long ago lapse from his typical good-guy behavior. And Sarah, frustrated by her husband, concerned about her stepdaughter, and worn out by challenges of life during quarantine, faces the alluring reappearance of someone from her past and a life that could have been.

When the wedding day arrives, lovers are revealed as their true selves, misunderstandings take on a life of their own, and secrets come to light. There are confrontations and revelations that will touch each member of the extended family, ensuring that nothing will ever be the same.

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𝙹𝚎𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚛 𝚆𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚂𝚄𝙼𝙼𝙴𝚁 𝙿𝙻𝙰𝙲𝙴. 𝙸𝚝’𝚜 𝚊 𝚖𝚘𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚝 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚔𝚎𝚎𝚙.

🌸 𝗠𝗬 𝗙𝗨𝗟𝗟 𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪 🌸

Overall, I enjoyed The Summer Place. I’ve been reading Jennifer Weiner’s novels for many years now and know that her stories will be both insightful and honest. The Summer Place is no different. I found this to be a moving portrait about families and the secrets they keep.

I do however think that it’s important to mention that I went into this novel thinking that it would be a beach read like her previous books. And while yes some of the book DOES take place on Cape Cod during the summer most of the book doesn’t. I was kind of disappointed if I’m being honest. I wanted to see more of the house that brings this family together. I wanted more flashbacks of the family because I felt so invested when reading their backstories. And I wanted to feel like I was reading a book about summer because that is what the title implies. Unfortunately, a lot of the book takes place in NYC, so the setting turned out to be more of a bummer.

Did that mean I didn’t love it? No. I liked quite a few things about this book, but I did wish it were more ABOUT the summer place (as the title describes) than all the characters who have been there. This is a story about a family, each of whom lives their own lives but become bogged down by the secrets they keep. I’d say it reads like a family drama rather than a chicklit/women’s fiction novel because of these things.

So, would I recommend it? Even though it wasn’t the beach read I expected I would still recommend it. The writing is amazing, and the characters are so interesting that it’s hard to look away from their lives.

𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗙𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗙𝗔𝗡𝗦 𝗢𝗙:
• Family Dramas
• Women’s Fiction Novels
• Novels by Jennifer Weiner

𝗠𝗬 𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: ⭐⭐⭐⭐