When I started to read the book, I became overwhelmed by the number of characters that it had. Every time a character came into the scene, I became confused and I had to take notes on who was who. The overwhelming details and number of characters prevented me from truly enjoying the book. I do have to say that the background and the details of the hotel were fascinating. This book is for people that absolutely love character driven novels.

Dirty Dancing has always been one of my favorite movies. Of course, I love all of the dancing in the movie, but I also love the setting of the movie. The hotel at which Baby and her family go to is the type of place I always thought it would be fun to visit. When Last Summer at the Golden Hotel opened up with a quote from Dirty Dancing, I knew it was going to be a fun book to read. One thing to be aware of when going into this novel is that there are a lot of characters, and it is an extremely character driven novel. In this book, there are two families who own the Golden Hotel- the Goldmans and the Weingolds. They must all reconvene one week to decide the fate of the Golden Hotel. Although it was once a happening place that was book solid for a year out, lately, it has been on its last leg. Over time, people have stopped coming, activities and decor have become antiquated, and it just isn't the same as it used to be. Within the families, each of the members are dealing with their own struggles and things in their personal life, on top of trying to decide what the fate of the hotel should be. For example, Aimee recently found out their her successful doctor husband has been paying for all of their extras and fancy things by selling and dealing prescription drugs. This is just one example of the things the characters are dealing with. When I first started reading this book, I was a little overwhelmed with all of the characters. I was getting confused easily, so I had to make a chart so that I could keep everyone straight. It took me a little while to find my groove while I was reading, but once I did, I started to enjoy the book. I did enjoy reading about all of the antics of the characters, and the things that happened while they were all at the hotel together was entertaining to read about. I also really enjoyed how the story ended. Of course, there are places that bring people together and tie them together, but I think this book really showed that the places we consider home are more about the people we share them with. Thank you to the publisher for giving me the chance to read an early copy of this book. I will share my review on my bookstagram page @readingmama_reviews a little closer to pub date!

This is the perfect book for Summer and I cannot wait until everyone can read this book! I seriously loved this so much. It made me laugh and it made me cry and I truly loved every character which is just so rare for me! This book follows the Weingold and Goldman families who own the famous Golden Hotel in the Catskills. The hotel is not the same as it used to and it has been struggling, but these recently god an offer for the hotel. The families gather to discuss if they should sell or keep the hotel and end up reminiscing on 50 years of memories.

Usually a book with so many characters would be confusing, but we follow each character at some point in time, so I felt like I really got to know everyone, so it was really easy to distinguish between them all. I have always been fascinated by hotels and this book was just so descriptive it made me want to go ASAP! I loved how this was also a family drama which are always my favorites. The Jewish representation was really cool and I had never heard of the Borscht Belt, so I loved researching right after I finished this book. This would also make the best movie and I can totally picture Adam Sandler as Brian Weingold!! Read this the second you can!

Fans of Dirty Dancing - this book is for you.

Head to the Catskills and see two families over three generations as they open & run The Golden Hotel, a reprieve for Jewish families from New York City during the hot summers.

The Goldman and Weingold families founded The Golden Motel back in the 60s and in it's heyday, the resort was spectacular full to capacity every weekend, attracting big name stars and full of family fun. Present day, the hotel is rundown, lacking guests and struggles to stay in business. An offer comes in from a large corporation to buy out The Golden Hotel so it can be torn down and a casino built in it's place. In order to accept the offer, there must be a vote including all the members of both families in order to reach a decision.

Told in alternating timelines including present-day and flashbacks to previous decades in the hotel, this story shows us two families balancing family dynamics, secrets and ulterior motives. The Goldmans and Weingolds all return to The Golden Hotel to decide what to do about this offer. During this week together, we get to see behind-the-scenes in each of the character's lives and struggles. We also see them each come to terms and process what it would look like if the Golden Hotel no longer existed given how much of their family history & memories are based in this resort.

This was an entertaining read that is about a resort hotel, but really is about family. It's about the choices we make and the consequences that flow out of of that. If you love novels about family drama and dynamics, this is for you. I loved the multigenerational look at these families. And I totally pictured the Dirty Dancing resort while I was reading this.

I absolutely LOVED this book. Maybe it was because a book set in the Catskills brought back my own memories of weekends spent at Stevensville and the Raleigh or perhaps the Goldmans and Weingolds and the Jewish rep in general reminded me of my own family, but it doesn't really matter. The point is that this book hooked me from page one and never let me go. The author told the book from several POVs and I was equally vested in each of them, from the twenty-somethings, forty somethings, eighty-somethings. The novel was funny, nostalgic, sad, and heartwarming all at once and I was sad to finish it. The ending was a delightful twist that I did not see coming. I wish there were more books like this!!

This is a quite readable book, telling of three generations at the Golden Hotel, a hotspot in the Catskills that saw its heyday in years past. The cast of characters is truly memorable. Benny, one of the hotel’s co-founders, has died, and his family and Amos’ family must come to terms with the hotel and its many memories and even some secrets. The older generation has a thing or two to teach the younger generation (and vice versa), while the middle generation tries to find themselves.
The dialog is good and the characters are precisely what you think they should be. The storyline is tight and has good flow. The pages keep turning until past your bedtime.

I was asked to read a prepub copy of this book for an honest review.

I devoured this delightful novel about family drama and secrets surrounding a dying Catskills hotel. I was completely engaged with the plot and greatly enjoyed the descriptions of the hotel in both its heydey and during its demise. With a satisfying ending, this is a great, fun read!

"A family reunion for the ages when two clans convene for the summer at their beloved getaway in the Catskills - perfect for fans of Dirty Dancing and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel - from the acclaimed author of The Floating Feldmans.

In its heyday, The Golden Hotel was the crown jewel of the hotter-than-hot Catskills vacation scene. For more than sixty years, the Goldman and Weingold families - best friends and business partners - have presided over this glamorous resort which served as a second home for well-heeled guests and celebrities. But the Catskills are not what they used to be - and neither is the relationship between the Goldmans and the Weingolds. As the facilities and management begin to fall apart, a tempting offer to sell forces the two families together again to make a heart-wrenching decision. Can they save their beloved Golden or is it too late?

Long-buried secrets emerge, new dramas and financial scandal erupt, and everyone from the traditional grandparents to the millennial grandchildren wants a say in the hotel’s future. Business and pleasure clash in this fast-paced, hilarious, nostalgia-filled story, where the hotel owners rediscover the magic of a bygone era of nonstop fun even as they grapple with what may be their last resort."

To get you in the mood for summer and tide you over until there's a new season of Mrs. Maisel!

After reading the first few chapters, I really did not think I would enjoy this book. There are many moving parts, characters, and “flashback/reflection” based passages early on in this book that really feel overwhelming. Fortunately, the true structure of the family does come across to the reader but it takes a bit of time.

The Last Summer at the Golden Motel focuses on members of the Goldman family and Weingold family as they try to decide if they will agree to sell the motel that the patriarchs of the two families developed together in the Catskills. The Goldmans and Weingolds are almost like one big blended family due to the tight brother-like bond of the grandfathers but naturally drama, changing societal preferences, and the changing structures of their own families has made an impact. The once envious Golden Motel now leaves something to be desired by guests but seems to be the perfect place for a casino - well if they destroy the existing structures. While trying to decide if they should take the deal or not, each member of this multigenerational family begins to reflect on what the motel means to them and what they mean to each other. There was a lot of nostalgia and humanity packed into this book that I did not expect based on my early impressions of the book. This is a good book to read and help you reflect on the changes in society, your own family structures, and your own family traditions.

A story of family and friends that are family and the traditions and memories that make change hard. When the family hotel in the Catskills falls on hard times the children and grandchildren of the founders need to make a tough decision, try to find a way to make the hotel profitable or sell it. A story of family and secrets and moving in to the future even as the past is celebrated.

Having read some of Elyssa's work before, I was keen to read this book and it lived up to my expectations. I thought her depiction of the traditional holiday resort from years gone by was faultless and I really got a feeling for what she was trying to describe. I loved all the characters as well and was very happy about the way all their stories interconnected. I found the ending a bit too neat though, but otherwise I thought this was a lovely, easy read with some great characterisation and some fabulous humour.

Friedland returns to a family landscape in her latest novel: hotels in the Catskills. Last Summer at the Golden Hotel is a nostalgic tale of what once was and can never not be again. Two families own the Golden, which was once an upscale high demand hotel. Age, changing times, and apathy have taken its toll. I liked how the author delved into the lives of the owners and their progeny. It gave a here dimensional view of their opinions. It's sad to see once proud facades gone, but I liked the ending, because it showed new initiatives in the younger generation and things can be passed down from generations. I kept thinking of Dirty Dancing while reading it.

A multigenerational story with everything one could hope for - happy, melancholy, bittersweet and reminiscent of family vacations for many of us. I loved every word.

The cover first drew me in to this book and I think it is just perfect. As we would expect from this author, the writing is sharp, with a sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle humor. Yet, this look at the decline of an era did bring with it some emotions. I think the author also did well at highlighting both the good and the not so good in her characters, making it easy to see not just their annoying quirks but also their humanity. I think this book does suffer a little from timing, in that the heaviness of the world right now (one year into the COVID-19 pandemic) can make it difficult to care as much about this sort of 'family drama.' But I think it is important to remember it is also about a family business (perhaps even a 'small business'), its highs and its lows, which is very much relevant in the world, whether it is your local 'mom and pop' coffee shop, or in this case, a family run hotel. I do think this will be a good summer read, so I hope folks will take notice when it officially publishes in May.

Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing for the ARC of this!

This was so cute! I have never been to the Catskills but now I want to go immediately. If only I could go in the 1960s though, because that seems like it would’ve been a great time based on the memories in this book.

I really loved all of the characters, but there were almost too many for me to keep track of. I also felt like sometimes one thought trailed into another without totally wrapping up some details. I am glad that everyone seemed happy at the end, I kind of wanted a different ending (I know what my vote would’ve been 😉) but still a really fun read that will have me scouring TripAdvisor until 2AM.

I am posting my review to GR and Netgalley now and will post to my IG on pub date 05/18/21

A sweet story about 2 families and their famous Catskills hotel. The decline of the Catskills and the hotels are woven into this novel about the families and their problems.

I found this superficial and predictable, so certainly not my favorite novel by this author. Those of us who remember the beautiful summers in the Catskills will enjoy this look backward to the golden summers that were spent in the hotels.

Thank you Netgalley for this opportunity to read and review this novel.

The concept of this one is so fun! The setting was unique and I loved all of the references to the “days gone past”. The characters were fun but there were so many of them! It was entirely too many characters and viewpoints, it got confusing. I needed a roadmap of who was who to follow along. The middle lagged a bit but the ending was great. This was witty and laugh out loud funny. My thanks to the publisher for the advance reader in exchange for my honest review.

A fun mix of family drama and nostalgia, Last Summer at the Golden Hotel takes us a Catskills resort where life-long friends and co-owning families the Goldmans and the Weingolds need to decide whether or not to sell to a casino developer. Across three generations of the two families, there are secrets, scandals, friendship and love and lots of memories, along with an acknowledgment that the hotel can't keep up with the changing times. But with some people wanting to sell and some reluctant to let go, how will the two families decide what to do? Friedland does a good job of bringing the characters and the setting to life and this was an easy and fun read. One might say it is a version of the author's The Floating Feldmans, but on land instead of a cruise, but I found this one even better with more likable characters.

I love this author and appreciate how she gets inside the heads of so many different characters. This was not my favorite of her books but I still found myself enjoying it and rooting for the hotel to succeed. I did find some of the personalities to be so annoying that it made it hard for me to enjoy their chapters, but the good news was their chapters were never too long!

I loved reading this story and it made me reminisce of summer fun with my own family. I like how the chapters were told through the perspective of each of the family members. I feel that when books are written this way you can really understand each characters personality and motives, which I find especially helpful when a book has numerous characters.