A summer read set on the Maine coast was the perfect choice.

Vacationland by Meg Mitchell Moore is a family drama centered around Louisa and her family who spend their summers at her family’s home in Maine. When Kristie shows up in town, the family drama really amps up.

I liked the alternating points of view in the chapters. Claire, Louisa’s daughter, was the very best! I loved her tell-it-how-it-is attitude. I also appreciated that the chapters alternated between the characters because Louisa was not my favorite character and I liked the other POV better.

I loved the descriptions of all the locations in Maine and the beach town setting. This was a great summer read and would be perfect for any beach vacation, even over the winter.

Thank you Netgalley and William Morrow for my review copy.

I usually love a family saga, but this book just wasn't it. It wasn't outright bad, maybe I just wasn't in the right mindset when I read it. The writing is strong and the characters are well written. The story is not original, but it is written in a way that it feels fresh and current.

Very well written family drama touching on topics such as first love, marital issues, infidelity, career goals, pregnancy, loss and life changing illness. One wants to continue following these characters lives and interrelationships. Told from the viewpoint of several main characters.

If you're looking for a summer read about families with complex characters and true-to-life struggles, Vacationland should definitely be on your list. It's a beach read with an added oomph, not all fluff and silliness, but realistic characters dealing with problems that ring true. Told in alternating POV's, it's perfect for fans of Eliin Hilderbrand and LIanne Moriarty and will make you want to book your next year's rental in Maine.

“We’re all imperfect people. We’re all making imperfect decisions all the time, every day.”

A great beach read full of secrets, family drama, and the love that holds it all together. Easy plot that moved right along, Characters that were likable and easy to identify with.

Perfect summer read set ion the beautiful coast of Maine.

Thank you to The Book Club Girl Early Read program, NetGalley, and William Morrow for the ARC. #Vacationland #Netgalley

This is a great summer read. The oceanside, Maine, setting is perfection. I could totally envision the house and small town. I love family stories, especially one where there are secrets waiting to be exposed. Here, a former Chief Justice now with Alzheimer's is at the center of a big family secret. I enjoyed watching the story unfold around the 2 main women characters. My only problem with the book, however, was the voice of the kids. One of the young daughters writes letters to her father at home about her summer adventures. The voice just felt very false to me - as if the author isn't around children much because that is not how they speak. That's a very small part of the book but one that stood out to me.

I liked this book a lot! It was a little slow but I loved all of the characters and I thought it was pretty realistic. I especially loved the children!

Vacationland ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Hello, perfect summer read. I had been in a bit of a reading slump a few weeks ago and couldn’t seem to stick with anything I was picking up. I decided to give Vacationland a try, and I’m so glad I did! The atmosphere and characters immediately pulled me out of my reading slump, and I had such an enjoyable reading experience with this one!

Louisa was raised spending summers at her parent's beach house in Maine. This summer, she heads there with her three children but without her husband, who is back in the city and a book deadline looming over her head. She’s hoping an idyllic summer will solve some of her writer's block and family unease, but when she arrives, her parents have news that upends her perfect summer. Meanwhile, Louisa isn’t the only one searching for healing in Maine this summer. Kristie arrives on a greyhound bus running from her past and hoping to learn more about her late mother’s connection to Maine. The multiple POVs kept this story moving, and I especially loved the chapters told from the children's perspective.

I will say that not a ton happens in this book, and it’s mostly a slice-of-life story. Even without a ton of crazy plot twists, I still felt it was very compelling, and I was always eager to pick it back up. I read it during a time when I was feeling a little distracted and scattered. This book was the perfect balm for my stressed and a little all-over-the-place brain, so if you happen to be in the mood for an easy breezy book, I highly recommend!

VACATIONLAND by Meg Mitchell Moore // A dysfunctional family drama set in the throes of a Maine summer. It was a quick read, but nothing really stood out as special about the story or writing and the last 25% building to the end lost my interest.

Wow what a wonderful book! I must admit I was expecting a light summer beach read but was surprised how much more this story was! Vacationland will pull at every emotions you have! I was laughing and crying though out, in the best possible way of course! It is honestly a really good book!

Great character study - I feel as though I know every character and their motivations, even the minor characters were well fleshed out and realistic.
The narrative was kind of divided between two stories: Kristie, a young woman who was running away, searching for some truth about her beginnings, and Louisa, the main protagonist, a mother, daughter and wife, very much at home in the big house in Maine, where she vacationed every summer from the time she was a small child, now bringing her own children to vacation at her parent's summer home.
I have to say that I did not care for Louisa, the protagonist, through most of the story. She seemed self centered and entitled to me, but she grew from her experiences in the book and actually did something that surprised me at the end.
This is a great book to get engrossed in during a summer vacation.

I received this as an Advanced Readers' Copy. It was the perfect quick summer vacation read. A New York City mom, Louisa, takes her three kids to spend the summer in her parent's New England home. Her father has Alzheimer's and her mother is managing his care alone. Their handyman meets a young woman who has arrived on the island with little money but a story that connects her to Louisa and her parents.

Through the summer the relationship between the handyman and the newcomer develops and long-kept secrets of the past come to the light.

A family drama with a cast of interesting characters! I enjoyed the multiple storylines and the setting descriptions. This was a wonderful summer read! I felt like the plot was a bit predictable and I wasn’t surprised by some events. However, I was invested in the characters and rooting for the family throughout.

This was the perfect summer vacation read. I really enjoyed this book. The characters were all interesting. I especially loved Louisa's kids - they were hilarious!

A wonderful summer readm:. Maine, the sea, romance, and family secrets. This novel ticks all the boxes for something to dig into during the warm summer months. Adored it.

This book is marvelous & took me on a virtual summer vacay when I desperately need it. Love this author and her amazing writing style.

For fans of the T.V. show This Is US, here is your perfect summer read!

Follow three generations of the Fitzgerald/McLean family as they spend a summer on the beach in Maine. While this one was a slow burn, it felt true to life. In any 3 month period of your life, so much and so little can happen all at once. Moore beautifully captured this. There was so much heart in the stories of this family, and there were many bits and pieces that felt so familiar to my story too.

Thank you to The Book Club Girl Early Read program, NetGalley, and William Morrow for the ARC. Vacationland is out now!

This book was so sweet. The families are all absolutely loveable, flaws and all. I could see and feel what it was like to be up there, on the coast, eating lobsters, enjoying a summer break. I’ve never been a waitress, but I could feel the long hours, the stress, and the hateful boss. The constant family interruptions of trying to write a book, everyone supposed to be helping, and yet, everything, always falls to mom. This was a great story, with many wonderful side stories, and I highly recommend it.

Louisa is an author who needs to get her next book written! She's spending the summer at her parent's summer house in Maine with her 3 kids. There's another character, Kristie, who also travels to Maine and Kristie has secrets that slowly begin to reveal themselves as the story goes on. The lives of both Louisa and Kristie will intertwine in interesting way. This story is full of great summer time details, family drama, some romance, and an aspect of women taking control of their lives. Despite having to suspend some disbelief in parts I loved this story!!

Louise is on sabbatical from NYU and when she returns, she should have completed her book. Well, she hasn't, her sabbatical is almost over, and her life is now very complicated. Instead of using her sabbatical as a time to work on her personal career goals, she is, instead, taking on all the duties surrounding her three children and the house, while her husband immerses himself in his new venture, a podcast company. Because her husband's company is a start-up, he has zero time for his family and the responsibilities fall on Louisa. So, instead of spending the summer in Brooklyn, she decides to go to her family's vacation home in Maine with the hope that her children will be busy in nature, her mother can help her out, and she can have a reset of sorts. Steven, her husband, is of course staying at home and will come up to visit when he can. At first glimpse, this is idyllic, right? A gorgeous house in Maine on the water and her family spending time together--what's not to love? Except things aren't great. Her marriage is crumbling and her father, Martin's, dementia is really taking a hold of him, which in turn is causing financial problems, not to mention her book is nowhere near done. Meanwhile there's someone new in town, Kristie, who is hoping to seek out the Fitzgerald family as she has secrets of her own that relate to Martin. Vacationland is a compelling family drama that at times can be a bit depressing, but overall, its message is one of hope.

Louisa is struggling when she returns to Maine, for what she hopes will be a break of sorts where she can work on her book and reconnect. She wants the kids to have a summer like she had growing up filled with moments by the water and off screens. She hopes Steven will come up when he can, but she doesn't necessarily need him there and likes the alone time. Obviously, their marriage is struggling. When she gets to Maine, she realizes that her father, Martin, a once chief justice in Maine, is now suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He has moments where he seems ok, but more often than not, he isn't. This is taking a toll on her mother as they know that he will need round the clock care soon and in turn, this will be a major financial burden to the family.

Louisa's children in Vacationland are also all dealing with their own summer issues. There's Mattie, who is experiencing his first crush, Abigail, who misses her father and writes him daily and lastly, there's Claire, who is only seven, and still needs a lot of guidance. Some of the chapters are narrated by the kids as well as Pauline, the longtime family housekeeper. The other chapters are narrated by Louisa and the mystery visitor, Kristie. At times, this felt like too many narrators for my taste.

Kristie is new to town and has a connection to the Fitzgerald family in Vacationland. Her backstory is rather sad as her mother recently died and Kristie finds herself trying to put her life back together and essentially get some closure. In order to do this, she needs to talk to the Fitzgerald family, but they don't know she exists....or do they? Cue the family drama.

I loved the setting of Maine in Vacationland. Moore did a great job bringing to life the beautiful old home on the bay and the gorgeous setting of coastal Maine. With the prospect of Louisa's mother having to put out a lot of money for Martin's care, the fate of the family beach house is up in the air. This definitely tugged on my heartstrings.

While I think Vacationland was a solid beach read, it read a bit too melancholy for me to give it four stars. I just felt sad reading it more often than not, although I appreciate the fact that Moore is portraying the heartbreaking condition of Alzheimer's disease and its impact on family. Thankfully by the end of the novel, I was feeling more hopeful and Vacationland's takeaway is more about forgiveness and the importance of family more than anything else.

So, are you a fan of Meg Mitchell Moore? Have you read Vacationland? Is it on your TBR list? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.