Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of the beach read. Although this one isn't set in present time (as evidenced by the title), I enjoyed the look back at the past and didn't feel that the time period distracted any from the story. I immediately fell in love with several of the characters as we followed a family through the summer of 1969 (and a quick peek at them during the winter of 1969). Hilderbrand weaved in a little bit of drama throughout the book but I felt like the "big secret" was pretty obvious and predictable. I didn't enjoy this book as much as I have other books of hers but it was still a good read. Looking forward to her next book!

Summer of '69 tells the story of four siblings and the summer that they each experienced in their own way. This summer is full of change, drama, fear, and new life. The book flips between each sibling's different point of view. The stories span from Jessie as she just turns 13 to her older, very pregnant sister.
Elin adds an Author's Note at the end of the book that explains where the idea for this novel came from.

*I received an advanced reader's copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This is the perfect summer read. I liked the East Coast setting and the different story lines of the various family members. Triumphs and struggles were throughout and I enjoyed seeing the changes in different characters. This felt like a time period piece and I loved being swept up in 1969. The author's note at the end explaining she was born with her twin brother in 1969 was the cherry on top at the end of the book, I loved that she included that! This was a unique book with the culture in the USA in 1969 and Hildebrand weaved her signature storytelling with historical events. It was well done and a great read! Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book!

1969 was an important year in the United States. The Vietnam War was still strong and there were lots of protests against the war, people were concerned with civil rights and rights for women. On the other side of the coin, there was the Moon Landing and Woodstock. I have trouble regarding 1969 as historical fiction because I have great memories of that year and it doesn't seem so long ago to me.

The Levin family had been spending their summers in Nantucket at their grandmother's beach house for many years. In the summer of 1969, Tiger (the only son) was in Vietnam as an infantry soldier, Blair was pregnant with twins and unable to join to make the trip from Boston to Nantucket, Kirby was in college and active in civil rights protests. She decided to spend the summer at another island working at a hotel away from her family. Jessie, the youngest, feels that she has been abandoned by her siblings for the summer. She's only 13 and just learning who she is and needs her family there to help her find her way. The summer is full news - The Moon Landing and Chappaquiddick and the preparations for Woodstock. While all of this is taking place off the island, Jessie is struggling to understand her family and worrying about her brother at war.

I enjoyed the way that real events became part of the story and part of the lives of the Levin family. Against the background of chaos in America, this family came alive as they dealt with the same problems as many Americans at the time.

This was a great look at life in 1969 - the music, the books, the news and the chaos.

Reviewed in Toronto Star, June 30, 2019

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2019/07/02/five-beach-reads-for-a-weekend-getaway.html



Summer of ’69, Elin Hilderbrand
There’s no better indicator that high summer is here than the arrival of Hilderbrand’s annual Nantucket novel This year it’s a period piece featuring three generations of interesting women, each with her own dramas to resolve: crusty matriarch Exalta; her daughter, Kate; and Kate’s three daughters, massively pregnant Blair, headstrong Kirby and naïve teen Jessie. The summer of 1969 was a tumultuous year: it saw the first moon landing, the death of a young woman in nearby Lake Chappaquiddick, a music festival in Woodstock, N.Y., and a United States riven by the Vietnam War, all of which feature in the plot. It was also the summer of Hilderbrand’s birth.

Thank goodness for summer and Elin Hilderbrand! Also, it only took me half of 2019 to figure out that the reason there are so many 1969 books right now is because it's the 50th anniversary of 1969!! So, it only makes sense that Elin would set this summer's Nantucket read in the past! A change for our favorite author, but still a solid summer read with a strong family story line. I heart summer reading!

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I've read and enjoyed a few of Hilderbrand's other novels, but her first take at a historical fiction was the book I didn't realize I needed at the time. I've been so caught up in thrillers and true crime that I needed a moment to flash back to a different time. Never mind the fact that that time period was before even my mom was born. I was big into the Kennedy history for a while so the fact that the Chappaquiddick incident was mentioned in this novel made me fangirl a little. This book is told in four different points of view of four different siblings. One of them is serving in the war, one is a teenager who is also half Jewish (half sibling to the other three), one is pregnant with twins (modeled after Hildebrand and her brother) and the other daughter is a political activist. Essentially the four siblings tell the story of their summer. This was the summer of the moon landing, and a very troubling summer for their family in particular.

Once I started this book, I couldn't put it down. We were supposed to be watching a movie last night (Ant Man!) but I was reading rather than watching. I just couldn't help myself! The story kept me hooked, no matter who it was telling it. The characters blended seamlessly, and it was easy to tell who was "speaking" which I think can be an issue with some books that have too many POV's. Hildebrand pulls this off perfectly. There were definitely a few times that each of the characters made me want to slap them, but I had to keep reminding myself that it was a different time.

This book was published at the beginning of the month of June. I know our library will be purchasing it, and I can definitely see it being a book club read or something similar. I know I will be recommending it to our patrons who like historical fiction.

the Summer of '69 is a summer of change for the Foley/Levin family. Tiger, the only son, has been drafted and mom Kate is sure his fate is tied to the secrets she is hiding. Meanwhile she is drinking too much and her daughter's have problems of their own as they try to find their own paths.A story of change and family set against the backdrop of the country growing up.

Review will be posted on July 3, 2019

Exalta is the matriarch of the Foley family and every summer the family stays at their historic home on the beautiful island of Nantucket. This year, Kate Levin, Exalta's daughter, is staying there with her youngest daughter, Jessie, but Kate is having a hard time coping. She should be happy to be on Nantucket for the summer, but there's a dark cloud following her everywhere she goes and that dark cloud is the Vietnam War. Kate's only son, Tiger, has been drafted and to cope with the horrors of the news regarding the war she takes to drinking. Her oldest daughter, Blair, is spending the summer in the city with her new husband and trying to start a family. Her middle daughter, Kirby, is a bit of a wild child and wants to spend the summer working on Martha's Vineyard. So, that just leaves Kate, Exalta, Jessie, and the caretaker of the house for the entire summer. Kate's second husband and Jessie's father, will visit on weekends, but his relationship with Katie is strained the more she takes to drinking to cope. The summer of '69 tends to be a life-changing summer for the Foley-Levin family and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. If you like historical beach reads you won't be disappointed by Elin Hilderbrand's Summer of '69.

I love how Hilderbrand captures the dynamics of a large family, especially when it comes to the strong women in Summer of '69. Kate is an complex character; my heart went out to her. While I didn't approve of how she was dealing with her depression, I can't imagine what she is going through with her son at Vietnam and having to listen to the news surrounding the horrific war. Her preoccupation with this means she isn't spending enough quality time with her thirteen year old daughter, Jessie. The relationship with her mother, Exalta, also proved to be stressful at times despite having the whole house to themselves. Jessie is also a character that tugged on my heartstrings. Thirteen is such a tough age and Hilderbrand captured it so very well. Jessie has been going through a lot especially when her mother turns the other way. She has a new found freedom, she makes mistakes, there's her first crush and testing her boundaries.....all while dealing with the fact that her older brother is at war. I liked that Tiger often wrote to Jessie and Hilderbrand highlighted their relationship through those letters.

Then there's Blair and Kirby in Summer of '69. I was really drawn to Kirby's storyline as she is a pretty fascinating feminist whereas Blair's plot really made me sad. Blair should be a happy newlywed married to Angus, an astrophysicist. I mean what an exciting time to be married to someone who is working on things in space, especially since man first walked on the moon that summer. But ultimately, Angus is a jerk. I won't go into it too much, but it depressed me that Blair sort of adhered to his rules and essentially changed herself for him. Their relationship is super complicated, especially since Angus is dealing with his own issues. On the other hand, Kirby's plot is a little more interesting in that she is hiding a secret. She got into some trouble (arrested protesting the war!) and is withholding some other secrets from her family. She wants to make a fresh start in Martha's Vineyard and work at the hotel, which will definitely make for an interesting summer. But no matter how far she goes from home, she still needs to face her past.

Summer of '69 is so much more than just a fluffy beach read featuring family drama. There's major issues that Hilderbrand tackles in this novel - everything from antisemitism, Teddy Kennedy's car wreck, mental health, feminism, racism, and so much more. I was rooting for the Foley-Levin family and desperately wanted Tiger to be ok. Although some of Hildebrand's previous novels (Here's to Us) were a bit of a disappointment, I can confidently say Summer of '69 is not. It's beach reading at its finest!

Unfortunately I do not feel comfortable reviewing this book nor able to give it a fair rating.. Perhaps at a later date I will revisit this title.

Another great read by Hilderbrand. I really enjoyed her first historical novel and liked how she tied it into her own life (being born in the summer of '69).

3.5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for a digital galley in exchange for an honest review.

Elin Hilderbrand states that her twin brother has always encouraged her to explore the summer they were born in one of her novels. Summer of 69 is that novel and sweeps readers back to Nixon, Vietnam, Senator Ted Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick scandal, women's issues, Woodstock, racial equality, class differences, the Moon landing and summertime in Nantucket.

The Foley/Levin family knows that this summer will be a different one. The recent deployment of only son, Tiger to Vietnam sees their mother, Kate, distant and losing herself to the bottle. Stepfather, David stays in the city and consumes himself with legal work. Oldest daughter Blair confronts the fact that marriage is not exactly what she dreamed. Wild child Kirby wants to prove her adulthood by heading to Martha's Vineyard instead of spending summer with the family. Youngest daughter Jessie is on the brink of adolescence and experiences her first twinges of young love. And finally, matriarch Exalta is trying what she can to keep all of her family together while also keeping secrets of her own. Just like their country, the summer of 69 is one that this family will never forget.


What I thought:

I thought this book was definitely good. It took me awhile before I really felt in the mood to read but eventually I hit my stride. There's a good mix of nostalgia and history that made it easy to transport myself to the Summer of 69. Of course, having "visited " Nantucket so many times with EH in her contemporary novels it certainly made it an easy fit. Despite the different time period, family and all the issues that arise are always brilliantly handled by Hilderbrand.


For me, Summer of 69 was all about the fictional characters that take turns in telling the story. The character of Jessie made me think about Reese Witherspoon's Dani Trant( The Man in the Moon 1991) or Anna Chlumsky's Vada Sultenfuss( My Girl ,1991) and she was quite possibly my favorite character despite having "met" her character before. Kirby and Blair were both women of their generation, but in saying that I felt there was nothing new to explore as it's already been stated in so many ways by authors and screenwriters. Mother Kate had my empathy but also my frustration which makes me tip my hat to EH. But Grandmother Exalta(who is not a narrator but has a larger than life personality )was such a riddle that I found her the most fascinating. Her relationships with Jessie and Kirby were the highlights of the novel for me. Also the prologue and "Fortunate Son" (Reprise) were the two places in the book where I ugly cried.

Also how cool were the chapter titles(Both Sides Now, Born to Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride, Piece of My Heart etc) ?

Although I cannot emphatically say that this was one of my favorites, it's a great summer read.


Goodreads Review 26/06/19
Publication Date. 18/06/19

I lived through the summer of '69 with 3 small children and lived in Massachusetts, so I can relate. It was certainly a time of change and turmoil in this country. So many momentous things were happening and many were awful. I was skeptical about how the author could incorporate so many issues in a family drama, but, in the end, I was not disappointed.

I absolutely love all of Elin Hilderbrand's books. Every June I look forward to the release date of her new summer on nantucket novel. It takes me away to a place that I would love to visit one day.

First of all, I have loved all of Elin Hilderbrand's books that I have read. She is one of my favourite authors, and with this book, she did not disappoint her fans! It was a bit different from her usual storylines, less focus on relationship drama and romance, and more focus on family.
The story follows the Levin family over the course of a summer while Tiger, the only son in the family, is fighting in the war in Vietnam. The story is told through Tiger's sisters' and mother's perspectives, but mainly tells Jessie, the youngest girl's story. Jessie is going through a difficult time, with missing her brother, and coming of age while on vacation at her family's summer escape on Nantucket.
I fell in love with the characters in the story, as flawed as each of them were. I was rooting for all of them, and wanted to keep reading to find out what happens to them. I would highly recommend this book to all fans of Hilderbrand and to those who have yet to give her books a read.

Summer of 69 is the perfect beach read revolving around Kate Levin and her four children during a tumultuous three months in American history. Oldest daughter Blair, estranged from her husband, joins her family on Nantucket to evaluate her life and await the birth of twins. 19 year old Kirby, involved in antiwar protests and the civil rights movement finds a job on neighboring Martha's Vineyard and falls for Darren despite the opposition of his parents. 13 year old Jessie struggles with first love and fitting in. Tiger, the charming and golden haired son, is drafted and sent to Vietnam at the start of the book, and his mother struggles to cope with her fear for his survival. The major events of the summer serve as a backdrop to the family drama. All the threads are wound together and there's a happy ending for everyone, the perfect way to end a light summer read.

I was 15 years old during the Summer of '69 and this book brings back a lot of memories from that time. Elin Hilderbrand has written an outstanding book that features a family that I hope she continues in future books.

I loved this book so so much. It is a wonderfully written story that is so much more than a typical chic lit read. The descriptions were so well written, I could smell the beach air and truly empathize with Jessie throughout the book. Highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Great fun! I was a teenager in 1969, the subject of this book. The novel is excellent, moving, and even informative. Great characters!

I really liked this book. I enjoyed getting to know the 3 girls and their story. It is nostalgic tale from 1969. Great summer read! I received this copy from NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.