While this book was a tad long for how I like my brain candy, it had heart and was definitely a page turner. It also had some twists and turns like Big Summer did that made it even more enjoyable to read. I definitely recommend throwing this in your beach bag this summer!

Weiner's entry in the #me too movement is a thought provoking page turner. Diana is a mother's helper who is in Cape Cod when something happens that changes the course of her life. Fast forward to present day and Diana meets another Diana and they become friends. This Diana goes by Daisy and she is a cooking instructor. She is married and has a teenage daughter Beatrice who is one of many memorable characters. Weiner brings Cape Cod to life and adds an element of mystery to this summer beach read with depth.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

I DNFed at 52%. Unfortunately, this one just let me down. I felt confused by the characters’ connections to each other, and honestly just bored with it at halfway in.

I just LOVED this book. The story kept me reading and reading but the book also kept me thinking and thinking. It raised numerous issues about trust, respect, friendship, control, All of these issues were handled in the book through some very interesting characters and through the storyline.

That Summer is the latest offering by Jennifer Weiner, one of my favorite authors. This tale navigates the Me Too movement by alternating between two different time periods. Diana, at age 15, is excited to spend a summer working as a mother's helper. She has an ideal summer right up until the end when something happens at a beach party. Fast forward several decades and Daisy is suddenly getting Diana's emails due to having a similar email address. Daisy and Diana soon begin a correspondence and their lives end up intertwined in a surprising way. Read and enjoy!

Daisy Shoemaker can’t sleep. With a thriving cooking business, full schedule of volunteer work, and a beautiful home in the Philadelphia suburbs, she should be content. But her teenage daughter can be a handful, her husband can be distant, her work can feel trivial, and she has lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. Still, Daisy knows she’s got it good. So why is she up all night?

While Daisy tries to identify the root of her dissatisfaction, she’s also receiving misdirected emails meant for a woman named Diana Starling, whose email address is just one punctuation mark away from her own. While Daisy’s driving carpools, Diana is chairing meetings. While Daisy’s making dinner, Diana’s making plans to reorganize corporations. Diana’s glamorous, sophisticated, single-lady life is miles away from Daisy’s simpler existence. When an apology leads to an invitation, the two women meet and become friends. But, as they get closer, we learn that their connection was not completely accidental. Who IS this other woman, and what does she want with Daisy?

From the manicured Main Line of Philadelphia to the wild landscape of the Outer Cape, written with Jennifer Weiner’s signature wit and sharp observations, That Summer is a story about surviving our pasts, confronting our futures, and the sustaining bonds of friendship.


My Thoughts:



As we follow the tale of two women named Diana, That Summer takes us back and forth in time. Something happened to fifteen-year-old Diana on the Outer Cape, but we don’t discover the details until much later.

Flipping between the present and those past events, we begin to finally understand what happened back then…and what is motivating one Diana in the present day.

As the events come together in the present, filling in the blanks from the past, we are in another #MeToo situation that will suddenly change directions. Will the two Dianas find solutions to the choices of the past and realize what is happening between them now? Meanwhile, “the entire country is the midst of facing the wreckage of decades of sexual harassment and sexual assault.” Is it a time of reckoning, an inflection point?

As Daisy reflects on her life, her daughter Beatrice reminds her of snippets of the play The Doll’s House, and she begins to change how she views her world and her husband. She can now turn her perspective onto that summer and what happened to the other Diana.

I loved this story, and I couldn’t wait to see what would happen.

***My e-ARC came from the publisher via NetGalley

I always pick up a Jennifer Weiner book thinking it is going to be a light read but they really aren't. They book was really heavy.

This book is centered around a rape. And it is at times hard to read. Because Diana's pain and trauma is relatable. But I loved her character and I loved Daisy and Beatrice as well.

The way the author spoke about the Kavanaugh hearings really just brought it all back and made me infuriated all over again. But it reinforces what many women felt during that hearing.

This is truly a great book but it isn't a light read so please go into it knowing that.
As always I love how she ties in body positivity and average sized women. I also loved the nod to Big Summer.

Thank you to Atria and Netgalley for this eARC.

Jennifer Weiner's latest will appeal to her fans as she tells the story of Diana and Daisy and how their lives intersect. The story looks back to their teen years and then carries them to the present as they each work out who are they really as adults and how did they come to be who they are. The topical ME Too background will appeal to some but ultimately this is the story of two women and their lives. I appreciated the author declining to take the cliche' plot twists that were available and instead working to find resolutions that fit the characters. I received an advanced reader copy from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Jennifer Weiner has such a strong ability to slowly pull you into the story. Her characters are so well developed, and I almost always love the journeys they take us on. Here’s a swimming analogy related to my feelings on That Summer, based on exactly how I enter a swimming pool. Dip a toe in, then a few minutes later, another toe, then half a leg, and even though I’m not super into swimming, I have to admit the pool feels great, so I keep submerging inch by inch and, wow, now that I’m fully immersed, I’m not ready to get out and it feels goooood. That’s basically how I felt about That Summer. I was excited about starting, but it took a few settings to really feel fully invested. At just shy of the halfway point, I was all in and couldn’t put the story down. It’s truly gripping.

That Summer is told through dual POVs, Daisy & Diana. The women are about 20 years apart in age, but their lives unexpectedly intersect through some “misdirected emails.” Daisy’s living a supposedly charmed life. She has a successful husband/marriage, thriving business, yada yada, but is having issues with the behavior of her teenage daughter, and doesn’t really have any friends to vent to. She and Diana start corresponding through email and agree to meet up. Diana tells Daisy she’s a “consultant” who happens to be working for an extended time in Philly, near Daisy. Their lives start to intersect more and more, we learn that the connection may not be as accidental as it seems. It’s a story of a teenage tragedy that shapes the future of every character in the book. There’s friendship, resilience, survival, forgiveness, and more. Weiner never fails to create complex characters that take us on thought-provoking journeys. Side note: Beatrice is a great side character! I absolutely loved her quirkiness.

Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing a digital review copy of That Summer.

Content warning: this book has strong themes of sexual assault, depression, #metoo and misogynistic conversations

That Summer is definite proof that Jennifer Weiner is an amazing writer. The novel flows so perfectly and into places much darker than readers might expect, but it's a journey that is absolutely worth taking.

That Summer is about two women, both named Diana, who connect over missent email, but one Diana, called Daisy by her husband, is starting to feel trapped by the gilded bars of her life and how small her husband, Hal, has made her world.

The other Diana is older and sophisticated and living a double life, trying to find a way to live with the horrific trauma she's endured, and that has left her with years of a barely lived, anxiety ridden life.

The two women meet and the older Diana starts a plan that she starts worrying about immediately even though she shouldn't. What she wants is justice, and in the end it will bring her a small measure of piece, of returning to the person she used to be in a way that will let her live her life without as much pain. Along the way, she's also able to help the other Diana, Daisy, and her daughter Beatrice as well.

This book is so brilliant at describing the pain that is caused when men who have power take from the powerless. There were entire sections and chapters that every woman who lived before #metoo laid bare how bad things could be will find herself nodding or crying along with.

There's also two particularly powerful and painful sections--one about a recent Supreme Court nomination that was so spot on with how it makes assault victims feel when questioned--and another from the pov of the man who has torn through both Diana's lives. His rage and incomprehension about who he is and what he's done is horrifying but so essential to understanding why so many men felt entitled to do awful things.

That Summer isn't a beach read--it is better than that, more than that. It's a timely book and a necessary one. I can't recommend this book highly enough and women who came of age in the pre #metoo era will find pieces, if not more, of their lives reflected and understood. Very very highly recommended.

This is a hard one to rate. I feel like the first half of the book was completely confusing. It all came together in the last half, but there were so many triggers for me. I’m seriously talking about a lot of triggers!! And I felt like it was way too political. We want to escape from reality when reading fiction and at times I felt like this was nonfiction. After reading this book it just put me in such a bad mood. And I love Jennifer’s books so much. I’m hoping her next one will be better.

I love Jennifer Weiner's writing and voice, so any new release is an instant read for me! This book did not disappoint. It was complex and real - I truly loved reading it!

I really loved Jennifer Weiner's novel Mrs. Everything and enjoyed last year's Big Summer, but this one fell flat for me. The characters felt very one-dimensional and the story felt bland.

Absolutely phenomenal story!!!!! This book hooks the reader within the first two chapters. I loved this story, the ebbs and flows of Daisy and finding out how the characters are all intertwined and have been in their lives at different times. I will absolutely recommend this book to anyone wanting something fresh and new to read. Also the book club will be reading this book this summer. Great story!!!!!

I'm not a fan of Jennifer Weiner's last two books. It seems she's going in the direction of becoming a Summer beach book author. We've got enough of those, thank you. This book hinges on the whole #Metoo movement with a woman reaching out to the wife of her rapist of 35 years ago. There were several implausibilities in this story and I just couldn't connect with the characters. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

What's the worst that can happen when two Diana's find themselves getting mixed up with email confusion? A lot! This story follows Diana "Daisy" Shoemaker who lives this great life with her horrendous husband, Hal, and rebellious activist of a daughter, Beatrice. She finds herself wanting to live vicariously through the other Diana (whose emails she had been receiving). Diana "Starling" has a heavy secret that she's been holding on to for years. She seeks revenge for the men who hurt her, but never imagined building a friendship with the woman that binds them all together.

This story focuses on several things included that sometimes people are not always who you believe they are. Life is not always as perfect as it may seem. Furthermore, throughout the book, Weiner does a phenomenal job of challenging the perspectives that accompany sexual harassment and assault in the workplace, school, and world.

Some parts of the book was really slow for my liking, but overall, I enjoyed it!

Trigger Warnings: sexual assault

This is an intriguing novel. A horrible incident paints every stroke of a woman’s life. When she learns the true names of the people involved, she begins a journey to make them own up on what they did.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Don't be fooled by this pretty and light looking cover - this book covers some dark topics. I think it's important to know going in that it deals with the effects of a rape on both the victim and the perpetrator, their lives and the lives of those around them. It was a compelling page turner that was easy to read despite the topics it addressed. ⁣
⁣The book focuses on two women and how their lives intersect. Their stories are both well developed and described. The side characters were (mostly) great as well. The Cape Cod setting calls to mind Weiner's previous book Big Summer (whose story gets a shout out here) but I liked this one much more (and I was a fan of that one too). ⁣
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If you like reading about women, their friendships, and the issues they face, with awareness of the topics covered, I think you will like this book. ⁣

I love the way Jennifer Weiner tells stories and have never been disappointed by any of her books. That being said, the central plot point of this book is the rape of a teenage girl, so it's definitely a hard subject to read about.

The format of alternating POVs and 2 characters having the same name makes it hard in the beginning to really get a feel of what is going on, but once you're able to fully grasp who everyone is and how their stories interact, everything unfolds nicely.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Daisy is a professional cook who starts to receive email for a Diana, whose email address is off by 1 punctuation mark of her own.

When they connect, Daisy wonders if their connection is accidental or is there something more?

Another novel by Jennifer Weiner that did not disappoint! I always love this author's books.