This was a cute fun, read! And of course, as soon as it was compared to Dirty Dancing, I was in! There were a lot of characters in this book, so I really had to pay attention to keep track. The story was so funny yet emotional. I really enjoyed it!

I received an advanced digital copy of this book from the author, publisher and NetGalley.com. My sincere thanks to all for the opportunity to read and review.

Last Summer at the Golden Hotel is a novel that focuses on the fun of dysfunctional families. Laugh out loud funny with tender moments of heartbreak. Ms. Friedland's writing sparkles in this novel. It's truly not to be missed!

5 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended!

Thank you for the review edition.

I found this book really fun and entertaining to read. I was immediately sucked into this work- and the family- and enjoyed my time there.

I cannot believe I have already reviewed this novel by Elise Friedland, Last Summer at the Golden Hotel.

This novel a fun look back at the history of the Catskill Mountains, a piece of especially Jewish nostalgia. This novel can be read for the simple entertainment and/or for a deeper dive into the family dynamics and drama.

The Golden Hotel has been a family run business for generations. Two families have come together every summer to open the hotel to the guests who return on a regular basis expecting a certain standard of service that is renown in the Catskills. This book is based on the historical hotels that attracted so many families who summered in the Catskills from New York City. The families would drive up and mothers and children would stay while fathers would commute back and forth to the city between work and leisure.

But times have changed and the hotels are not as popular as they once were. The clientele is not returning and those who are seeing the decline of the facilities. The owners cannot keep the hotel running. There are of course also secrets that have been kept over the years and relationships are on edge. it is time to sell and move on. But not everyone is in agreement about how to move forward.

The issues of the generational divide and the hard decisions to live in the past or to embrace the future. How to memorialize the past and not lose the memories of fun times had. This plot also examines family secrets and how much you know about people even when you live with them.

This was a little hidden gem, I really didn’t expect to love it in the way I did but I fell hook line and sinker for this story!

Two Jewish families bought and ran a hotel resort in the Catskills (think Dirty Dancing) back in the 1960s and now it’s dated and no longer pulling in the crowds it once was and the families are all called together to discuss what to do with it, and spend one last glorious summer there.

Bursting with nostalgia, adorable characters, and a beautiful setting! Highly recommend!

OMG I loved this!! I love a Catskills, summer, Dirty Dancing/Mrs. Maisel scenery type of book!

Longtime friends reunite for the summer - LOVE IT - and of course there is DRAMA.

There was fun and hijinks but also real life feelings and I could not put it down. Such a great summer read!

A time when everyone escaped to a place where life was simple, the food pentiful, and the entertainment lasted for days. A place where friends could reconnect, families could spend time together, and kids had a chance to experience new things.

The nostalgia from start to finish delves into a world that was once the place to be ... the Catskills. Now, it's a place sprinkled with memories from places that no longer stand.

Welcome to an era like no other. I absolutely enjoyed this book and it brought back so many memories from stories my dad told me, and to a place I once spent a summer nestled in-between the rundown bungalows and hotels in need of a few repairs.

A story of family, relationships, secrets, assumptions, expectations, and ultimately acceptance. The perfect book for a summer read.

As soon as I saw the description of this book, I knew I had to read it. As a huge fan of Dirty Dancing, I loved the Catskills setting and couldn't wait to dive in. I loved the feuding families element, and as a former historic preservation attorney, I was rooting for the hotel to be saved. A fun summer read!

***I received an advanced reader's copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***

What a perfect book to read during the summer! It makes me want to watch Dirty Dancing on repeat and has a beautiful nostalgic feel to it of the bygone era of family resort vacations in the Catskills. Told in multiple viewpoints, this novel is the ups and downs of operating the last remaining resort in the Catskills and all of its complications. It‘s hilarious in parts with a sweet ending.

Certain books are like a warm hug on a winter's day- ironic I know cuz this book is centered around the summer season, but it was a warm hug nonetheless 🤗

#TheLastSummerAtTheGoldenHotel is about 2 families who co-own a Jewish summer-retreat hotel in the Catskills and their indecision on whether to sell the hotel or try & renovate a years old money pit.

Amos Goldman and Benny Weingold had been best friends growing up and opened the hotel together as equal partners. Their wives and then later their children were very much a part of running things even though the families clashed at times.

It was fun getting to know all the characters and the dynamics btwn them, the myriad of ways they had connected with or disconnected from each other. It had that nostalgic feeling and I enjoyed sitting with the characters in the present reflecting on the memories of the past.

Though there are a lot of characters at play (the families' children and grandchildren) I thought the author did a great job of keeping things simple enough not to get confusing and yet subtly detailed at the same time, giving each character some dimension and an equally present storyline as the other. I found that I didn't necessarily favor one storyline over the other (or if i did it was only slightly) which was a pleasant surprise and a gave the book a nice well rounded-ness. The only thing I would say about that, is that it did leave me wanting more though.

The author created this world and characters that I liked so much I wished it could've been a bit meatier and detail more of what they were each going thru. I know that would've been impossible given the amount of characters and things going on, so it really was perfect the way it is but I couldn't help wanting more.

It wasn't the kinda book that kept u enraptured, (not every book needs to be) but it worked nicely as an evenly paced read, like a medium- slow burn. All in all this was just an enjoyable read all around ☺

Huge thank you to @getredprbooks & @berkleypub for sending this my way🥰 it's very rare for me to find myself an own voice reviewer so I appreciated the author's talent all the more. Already looking forward to her next book!

It's like "Succession" and "Dirty Dancing" had a baby, but in the best possible way. This was fun and nostalgic, and the perfect book to kick off my summer reading.

A cute and fun read. Save it for the beach if you can, that's what I wished I had done. The dynamic between the two families was perfect. The hotel gave me Kellerman's from Dirty Dancing vibes.

I really did enjoy Last Summer at the Golden Hotel. I love multigenerational family dramas and this book had that and more. The story is about two families in the 60s who start a hotel in the Catskills of New York as a refuge for city dwellers to relax and cool off. This area was known as the Borscht Belt! If you watched the second season of the Marvelous Mrs Maisel, you will see this clearly! They were mostly Jewish families and the hotel focused on good food, drinks, and entertainment. It was popular for up and coming comedians to get their start at these hotels.

The book picks up after many years as the Golden Hotel is facing very costly repairs and it’s just not profiting money anymore. One of the original founders has passed away, and his family must decide what to do while dealing with the other original family. They have an offer to sell the place, but the new owners would tear it all down and build something more modern. The money is a good deal, but it’s hard to see your life’s work just ripped apart.

I really enjoyed the nostalgia for the time. You can picture what it was like when the Golden was in its heyday. I also loved all the Jewish food references since that is very NYC too. The differences between the families and the generations were very interesting to see especially when it came to ideas for modernizing the hotel. The family outing to goat yoga was a particular highlight!

This book was fun, and I liked the family drama aspects. However, I felt that it dragged on a bit longer than it needed to. I loved the ending - it felt like a well wrapped package.

I absolutely loved this book - from the dysfunctional family dynamics to the amazing Jewish representation (and the most perfect ending), Last Summer at The Golden Hotel was a truly special book.

The book is described as Dirty Dancing meets Schitt’s Creek and I totally see it. This book was just fine as a summer read.

It’s a fast, poignant read, that pulled on my heart and had me giggling at times, too. It reminded me of my favorite, Dirty Dancing! The sense of community during those summer vacations is something special. Loved the nostalgia and all the dynamics between the two families.

I went into this book hoping for Dirty Dancing vibes and while there was no dancing involved, the setting really transported me and it felt like summertime in a book. The family drama never felt boring and I grew to love all the characters. This is definitely a wonderful summertime, read by the lake type book :)

I started reading Last Summer at the Golden Hotel a few months ago, but I put it aside, because it was too hard to keep track of all the characters. There are two families, three generations each, and the book shifts perspective between different family members. So, there ware constantly disorienting questions as I tried to read: which brother? whose daughter? who’s married to who? was that a Weingold or a Goldman secret? Wait, does he know about her secret or not? I’m glad I picked it up again, but the constant head-hopping in a large cast remains the troublesome part of this fun family novel.

The Golden Hotel is a Catskills resort, built and opened by Amos Weingold and Benny Goldman back when the summer Catskills was the “Jewish Alps.” At its height, the hotel offered swimming, dancing, huge buffets, games, and plenty of matchmaking for the younger visitors, but today, it’s rundown and half empty. Amos’ son Brian manages the hotel, a position given to him by his parents when he floundered after his divorce. There’s an offer to buy the hotel, a solid figure from a corporation who plans to dismantle the old hotel and create a Catskills casino on the property. The two families need to decide whether to stay or sell, and their deliberations bring up old hotel memories and family secrets, and the financial due diligence turns up even more secrets.

This is an unusual book in that the A Plot, about whether the hotel will be sold or kept, wasn’t the main draw for me. Although the potential sale gets the two families to the hotel and sets the other stories in motion, I wasn’t really pulled in. The hotel was just so comically rundown, with ancient guests keeling over, that it was a bit hard to take that storyline seriously. Still, I enjoyed the family’s memories of the old Catskills and the earlier generations at the hotel. The real draw was the other storylines, with interlocking romance, secrets, and general family disharmony. Years of quiet snubs or teenage crushes are remembered and revealed in this reunion at the Golden. The payoff for keeping track of so many characters is seeing how certain events rippled out through the generations and how other events were misinterpreted and misremembered. It’s like a condensed family saga, taking place in just a few days, but with memories of the hotel and the family going back decades.

There are a couple heavy-handed moments here, but in general I really liked meeting the Goldman / Weingold crew and seeing all their memories of the Golden Hotel in this novel.

I don't often reach towards contemporaries. Sometimes feel like there is a lot of backstory, too much back story, and a lot of vanilla. Unfortunately, for me this book fell into that category. Even current events were lacey with back story. There were a lot of characters to keep track of and I didn't connect or really care about any of them.