The Summer Place is my favorite Jennifer Weiner novel yet. Partly because it’s my 5th, so I know what to expect and what mindset I want to be in to most enjoy it. But also because these characters are incredible works of art. They’re real, multidimensional beings, not just as a cast but standing alone too. Each character was my favorite character while reading from their perspective. Now that I’m done, I still can’t pick a favorite.

I can’t take about the characters without mentioning the house itself. The story includes a few brief interludes written in the voice of the actual house itself (The Summer Place!). These interludes are chalk full of powerful imagery and absolutely gorgeous writing, so I can’t say I didn’t love them. But they felt out of place with the rest of the story. But maybe that’s the point? I don’t know, jury’s still out on the anthropomorphic house.

Turning to the story itself, TSP is a multifaceted tapestry chronicling three generations of family life. It explores the meaning of “family” and unequivocally determines that it’s not biological. Family is what we make it and who we choose to call our own, regardless of what a DNA test might say. I love this.

One theme I wish JW explored more explicitly is forgiveness. The ending doesn’t make sense without it. I worry readers will find the ending unrealistically tidy since the humility and unconditional love that foster such deep forgiveness aren’t acknowledged. Minor point but I think the story would be stronger with it.

Overall I really loved this one and am so excited for Jennifer Weiner fans to get their hands on this one. It won’t disappoint!

Thanks to Atria Books for the gifted copy!

I continue to be a fan of Jennifer Weiner and her writing. She really has this great way of pulling you into the story, introducing you to each character with thought. She builds them out in front of you while painting you a picture of Cape Cod. I appreciate that while Covid is mentioned in this book and is part of the overall plot, it isn't the main focus. It's a side piece of what is driving the story. I enjoyed seeing each character's cracks begin to form, and show just how human each of them is. The personification of the house, in gentle moments, really kept me drawn in. I just love how she writes.

Jennifer Weiner does not disappoint. This story is so relevant today. It deals with the pandemic in a way that doesn't make me want to curl up in a ball. The family dynamics are fascinating & get more so as the story progresses. First you have Sarah, a former pianist that chose not to pursue it professionally, is dealing with her step daughter's (Ruby) announcement that she & her pandemic boyfriend are going to get married & they are doing it at Sarah's mom's house on the Cape. Sarah is torn because she thinks they are too young & it's all too fast, but she isn't getting any back up from her husband (Ruby's dad) because he has become completely distant during the pandemic. Veronica, Sarah's mom, is thrilled to have everyone coming. Sam, Sarah's twin, is dealing with his own issues with a step son & life choices. Ruby & Gabe, the happy young couple, are getting ready for the big day. There are many twists & turns in this family's story that you need to read to enjoy.
Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for advanced copy in exchange for my honest review

Well of course she does it again. A wedding brings everyone to the cape for the summer and that means a boiling over point for the secrets hidden, tensions brewing, and all the resentments and misunderstandings a family can have.
This is the first book I've read that sets us in the midst of the pandemic -- with Ruby the college student not wanting to quarantine without her boyfriend, Gabe- and all of a sudden a household is in an intense reconfiguration of husband, wife, two little kids, and one young couple. As the two young lovers are finding their way through a relationship that's been put on fast-forward because of the pandemic, quarantine-life has brought her usually blissful marriage to a screeching halt. The annoyances that brewed up were so relatable, but of course this is a Jennifer Weiner book, so what's going on with this family is a lot more complicated -and readers will peel layer after layer throughout the book to understand what is really going on.
Couldn't put it down.

The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner is the perfect summer read! Taking place in Cape Cod, this is a story of three generations of a family getting together to celebrate the wedding of Rudy and Gabe. They are young and haven't known each other all that long but when you're stuck together during covid you get to know someone pretty fast! Everyone has a secret and they are all brought to light during the days leading up to the wedding. Some of them you will not believe until you read it!

A sweet Summer book!
Jennifer Weiner has thrown quite a few complicating factors into this extended family story and you will meet all of the characters as they gather in Cape Cod for a family wedding. It's a quickly planned short wedding week and there are multiple secrets to be revealed.

The house, itself, is a character along with stepmothers, estranged mothers, uncles, cousins, neighbors, and grandmothers. It's a long book, but I think that some of the interesting characters were left hanging with less description to bring them to life.

If you like Summer romances of all kinds, the magic of the Cape, or just love a sprawling multiperson point of view story then The Summer Place is for you! #Atriabooks #NetGalley #NetGalleyreads

I really tried to like this because I like Jennifer Weiner, but I just could not get into it.

Pros: I loved the interludes from the “special” character. They were so beautiful to me. I enjoyed Sam’s story the most. It was achingly sad but his journey was fascinating to experience along with him.

Cons: I hate the miscommunication tripe and this book is filled with them. I felt like it dragged on and on and I really just wanted to get the climax, which is the big gathering at the house. There was a lot of build up for little payoff, in my opinion.

Ruby’s first chapter, typo: “Ruby knew she wasn’t beautiful. She could loo cute, at best…”

This is the ultimate beach read. Romance and chick lit is not my preferred genre anymore, but I will always make an exception for Jennifer Weiner. Her characters are always likable, and her plots are never boring. The Summer Place was no exception, I loved it.

In exchange for a honest review from Atria book via Netgalley I was able to enjoy reading this book.
While I felt it had alot of character build up, I understood why near the end....what a shocker!!

Written well, kept my interest. Jennifer Weiner has written another fun "summer read"

One of her best! With characters that you get to know well enough that you feel that they are friends, this book is not to be missed. When Sarah’s daughter announces that she is getting married her family is shocked. Not only has Ruby not known this young man very long, but she wants to get married quickly. When Ruby’s father figures out that he may have a connection to this young man that no one else is aware of, it sends him into a depression that he is unable to talk about and pushes him away from his wife and beloved family. Told from several characters point of view, this book is wonderfully written and impossible to put down.

I'm disappointed to say that this Jennifer Weiner novel didn't work well for me. I really love her writing, but this one was not for me. I really didn't like the multiple POVs. There were so many people telling the story, and it was exhausting to keep up with. I had to keep track of the people and the different timelines in the story because it bounces around, and it just didn't flow. It felt like work to get through.

I think maybe we should stop calling all of her books beach reads. This one and the one that was published last year are not very light. They are heavy topics, and it's okay for the story to not revolved around a beach setting to just call it a beach read.

Overall, this was disappointing for me. The story was slow-paced and hard to follow.

Jennifer Weiner has a way of sweeping you up in characters' lives, and The Summer Place displayed this talent. This novel focuses on a summer house, and Cape Cod, as a special place for the Levy-Weinberg family, yet they realize its significance too late. Ronnie is the matriarch of the family, and urges her twin daughter and son to bring their families to her beloved summer house to spend more time together. Yet Sam and Sarah are busy with their spouses and children to make the time to come see their mother. A layer of bitterness for their mother's focus on her writing career during their childhood also creates distance in their relationship, yet the family is brought back together with the impending wedding of Ronnie's step-granddaughter, Ruby. As the family prepares for Ruby's wedding, a trunkful of secrets are revealed that have the potential to alter Ruby's relationship, and break other ties.

This book was hard to put down as each character's betrayals and discoveries unfolded. I loved getting to know each character, and appreciated the depth that Weiner created in each one. I felt that Annette and Rosa's characters were slightly less developed, but I was able to understand their motivations during their short chapters. Parts of the story were quite dramatic and the interconnectedness of each poor decision was perhaps beyond belief. However, I found these details to be part of the book's allure, and I was hooked on the story. This book is the perfect escape from reality!

I really enjoyed this book! It really describes the pandemic in such a relatable way. The family dynamic really pulled at my heart strings, i was laughing with them and crying with them. This book had me from the first page then i slowly i found myself struggling to focus on certain characters POV. But i'm glad i made it through! This is the first book I read around the pandemic and it's made me what to read more.

Typically I enjoy Jennifer Weiner books but this one was not for me.

I found the multiple points of view repetitive and at times annoying. I would have preferred a single or even dual point of view but I think there was 4+ characters telling the story at once if I remember correctly. As well the timeframe isn’t chronological, which makes it hard to keep track of what happened to who and when.

I found the story dragged on and really didn’t feel like a summer beach read to me., unlike her other novels which are light and more fun. This was definitely more on the serious side.

Like other reviews I have read I felt that this book had a lot of sexual content and infidelity. I’m okay with a bit but not every single relationship in the book has to have one of the partners cheating! I would have appreciated some trigger warnings for everything.

Thank you to Simon Schuster and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

OK, so… about Jennifer Weiner’s books: I loved Big Summer. I enjoyed That Summer. I barely liked The Summer Place. Barely.

Maybe this book is for people who absolutely love character driven stories. There are lots of characters and we dive into each of their lives in detail. Like, really, it takes five pages to describe one thing about each character (and maybe that’s why this book is over 400 pages)

Don't get me wrong, I like details. I just dont need to know where each of the twenty people in the story went for high school.

Also, another thing that bothered me in this book: redundancy in events. It takes ten chapters for one simple event to be concluded. I’m officially taking a break from draggy family secrets contemporary fiction. And by family secrets I mean adultery. Lots of it. I rolled my eyes many times and just wanted to scream “Just keep your reproductive organs in your pants, people!”

The one good thing about this book (and Weiner’s books in general): the setting. It makes me want to go to Cape Cod sooo bad!

A fun read - love how Weiner wrote about the pandemic and some of the emotional struggles we all experienced during the initial days of lockdown without either glossing over it or making it too traumatic. I enjoyed the large cast of characters, who came from all walks of life and generations.

Another great summer read from Jennifer Weiner. Set in NYC, Sarah is shocked when her 22 year old stepdaughter gets engaged shortly after the world is coming out of lockdown. This announcement causes Sarah to overanalyze her marriage, and question other family relationships. Sarah's mother was a best selling writer who also looks back at her life wondering if the choices she made were the best ones.

After reflecting on my 2022 reads thus far, I realized I was leaning heavy on the dark reads. I picked up THE SUMMER PLACE hoping for something fun and sudsy; what I got was a pile of loathsome people who chose to get married but couldn’t for the life of them stay faithful.

THE SUMMER PLACE is a multigenerational family drama that follows a messy family the last summer at the family’s beach house on Cape Cod. This all sounds lovely, but unfortunately this wasn’t the book for me.

I don’t mind infidelity as a plot point in a storyline, but I do mind when it is seemingly the only plot device in the author’s arsenal. Believe me when I say that everyone and their mother (literally) were choosing to stray in their marriage. It was a steamy read but it felt even more unsettling to me knowing that these romps were dishonest. Know yourself as a reader–this might land better with you than it did with me and that’s completely fine.

I started the book on audio and quickly switched to my kindle to get a better handle on the characters. There are way too many characters given POV chapters and I think the book would have benefited from focusing in on a few narrators. This became especially tricky to keep track of everyone on audio, although the narration by Sutton Foster was superb.

Weiner’s writing is solid but 432 pages of light plot and a plethora of implausibility felt excessive for a summer read. Other readers have enjoyed this one, but ultimately it just wasn't for me. My search for the fun and sudsy summer read continues!

RATING: 2.5/5 rounded up to 3 stars (would only recommend to certain readers)
PUB DATE: May 10, 2022

A big thank you to Simon audio and Atria books for advanced audio and electronic copies of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review will be posted to www.instagram.com/kellyhook.readsbooks in advance of publication day

When her twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter announces her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, Sarah Danhauser is shocked. But the wheels are in motion. Headstrong Ruby has already set a date (just three months away!) and spoken to her beloved safta, Sarah’s mother Veronica, about having the wedding at the family’s beach house in Cape Cod. Sarah might be worried, but Veronica is thrilled to be bringing the family together one last time before putting the big house on the market.

But the road to a wedding day usually comes with a few bumps. Ruby has always known exactly what she wants, but as the wedding date approaches, she finds herself grappling with the wounds left by the mother who walked out when she was a baby. Veronica ends up facing unexpected news, thanks to her meddling sister, and must revisit the choices she made long ago, when she was a bestselling novelist with a different life. Sarah’s twin brother, Sam, is recovering from a terrible loss, and confronting big questions about who he is—questions he hopes to resolve during his stay on the Cape. Sarah’s husband, Eli, who’s been inexplicably distant during the pandemic, confronts the consequences of a long ago lapse from his typical good-guy behavior. And Sarah, frustrated by her husband, concerned about her stepdaughter, and worn out by challenges of life during quarantine, faces the alluring reappearance of someone from her past and a life that could have been.

When the wedding day arrives, lovers are revealed as their true selves, misunderstandings take on a life of their own, and secrets come to light. There are confrontations and revelations that will touch each member of the extended family, ensuring that nothing will ever be the same.



My Thoughts:

The Summer Place is the centerpiece of this captivating family story that carries the reader along as we get to know each of the characters. There are so many layers with them all, and we gradually come to love them, not wanting to say goodbye to any of them.

The Pandemic is also a big part of this story that goes beyond its Cape Cod setting, resonating with those of us who are still feeling the sweep of it.

I felt a connection to each of the characters, but my favorite was probably Sarah. She felt like someone I could enjoy as a friend or even a daughter.

I loved how the author brought us into the whole family with all of their quirks and issues, and how we could root for each of them, from Veronica the matriarch to the younger members of the family, like Sam’s stepson Connor.

When I finally set the book down, I wanted to start over with it again! Definitely a five-star read.

My e-ARC came from the publisher via NetGalley.

This is the second book I’ve read by Jennifer Weiner. She is an excellent author and has a strong following. Unfortunately, this book is not for me.

The formatting of this book is cumbersome with the spokesperson for each chapter being another of the characters. They may all speak about the same events, or not. The time frame isn’t always linear, and it is hard to keep track of what happened to who and when. I would have preferred a single spokesperson throughout the book, using a calendar-related timeframe.

Secondly, I’m not a prude, but this book is filled with a large amount of extremely explicit sexual acts, including male on male. This ruined the book for me. A warning in the description of the book regarding the latter would have been appreciated.

I did like the characters for the most part, but I never became emotionally invested in any of them. The storyline seemed to drag on.

I did appreciate the way that the family came to appreciate the Summer House and decided to accept it part of their future, thus forming a more cohesive and loving family unit.

If you don’t mind much infidelity and in-depth sexual activity, this book may work well for you. I would have preferred a cleaner side to the romantic portions.

I would certainly consider reading another of Jennifer’s books, but I would investigate the nature of the book prior to choosing it.

I received this advanced reader’s copy for free from Author Jennifer Weiner, Simon and Schuster Inc. Publishing, and NetGalley. This is a voluntary review, and all comments and opinions are entirely my own.