Overall I thought this book was ok. I wasn’t a fan of the main character and I had a hard time understanding her actions at points in the book. I thought that the writing styles was good but I did think it was off to a very slow start. I did like reading it but it wasn’t my favorite!

The Girls of Summer is a novel that will stick with me. Dark, compulsive and atmospheric, I didn't want to stop reading. I struggle sometimes with coming of age stories that deal with grooming, consent, trauma and other sensitive issues because I feel authors try tend to gravitate to a gratuitous overplay of sexua descriptions to simply shock the reader. I don't need that. I think Katie Bishop does a great job at threading that needle of bringing the reader into that predatory space. I think this novel will make for a great pick for book clubs, a lot to discuss.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read and review honestly an advanced digital copy.

The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop
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Rachel is vacationing in Greece with her husband. She is remembering her time in Greece when she was young and her first love that summer. When she runs into someone she knew that summer, she looks into reconnecting with her lover. But this will bring her to face everything that happened that summer.
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What I liked:
-I love a good past/present storyline. Girls of Summer delivered. I was invested in knowing every detail of that summer the story was slowly doling out to me.
-Every story needs a good bestie and Rachel’s grown up bestie delivered, despite the less than stellar decisions Rachel makes.
-This made me want to go back to Greece.
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What I didn’t like:
-There are some triggers here to be aware of, and some of the plot was a mature topic. Not an easy breezy summer read, for sure. Very serious, and I needed a happy read after this one.
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3⭐️⭐️⭐️

Less a thriller, this was more a coming of age, reckoning with your past, #MeToo story that sees a woman returning to the Greek island where she had a love affair with an older man to join in those who are testifying against him. While there she has to reexamine the summer she's always glorified and look at it from all new eyes.

This wasn't a bad story, it just wasn't the one I was expecting and I really didn't love the narrator which likely didn't help with my overall enjoyment. Just a 3 star read for me unfortunately. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

Rachel and her best friend Caroline are off for a summer vacation in Greece. Rachel met Alistair, who is twenty years older than Rachel, but Rachel didn’t care. The book is a slow atmospheric read. The story unfolds over dual timelines with Rachel as the MC. I like this type of writing. The plot isn’t clear cut, and it isn’t until past the half way mark, that I slowly began to understand what was happening.

# netgalley

This book was somewhat mis-marketed. I had requested it under the assumption that this was a thriller. However, another reviewer had warned me that this was actually more of a literary mystery. Rachel and her friends are having the summer of their lives living in Greece, bartending and partying the summer away. Rachel also meets Alistair and falls desperately in love with him, but everything falls apart when one of the girls ends up dead.

Katie Bishop delves into the dark secrets and obsessiveness, blurred lines, power and manipulation that can happen between teenage girls and older men. I enjoyed this read on audio (Annabel Scholey does a fantastic job narrating), but would suggest avoiding if you have any triggers relating to #MeToo.

Thirty-something Rachel feels stuck; bogged down in a life that is beneath her. She knows she should be married to handsome and sexy Alistair living a carefree and sensual life. Instead, she is married to handsome and supportive Tom whose main focus is starting a family. Sex is a duty dictated by her fertility cycle unlike the passionate, spontaneous love making she had with Alistair. Blue skies, warm weather, and adventure is what she is due; not the gray skies, rain, and predictable life she has with Tom. However, Alistair is from 15 years ago; last seen on a sun-drenched Greek island. What would Rachel do if she had the opportunity to see her first love again?

Rachel has an image of herself as she was when she was 17: fresh-faced, expectant, and in love. She fails to see she was also inexperienced, petulant, envious, and impressionable. Now at 33, she still thinks and acts like an adolescent incapable of seeing past her own wants and needs. She is stuck in the past. Her idyllic recollections of the past consume her every thought and action (Rachel: “I’m so caught up in remembering the past that I’ve barely noticed the present”). The story—which had me in suspense--is told in alternating chapters of “Then” and “Now”: as I read, I awaited the inevitable crash to occur when her past begins to catch-up with her.

Rachel is a highly unlikable character, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. She is manipulative, selfish, and unsympathetic. She is telling her story, as it affects her. For example, she sees her lies to her husband as a way to avoid conflict, not as manipulation, However, she never gains any insight until…

This book has elements found in the thriller, suspense, psychological, and coming-of-age genres. Katie Bishop does an outstanding job showing who Rachel is through her internal dialogues. She is a complex character able to be naive and manipulative at the same time.

I would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read and review this debut novel.

While this book might be generating buzz as "the book of the summer," sadly, it's not my book of the summer. I found the first 20% of the novel to be super strong. I was hooked. I loved the alternating timelines and the voices that they were written in. However, I found myself losing interest in the story about 30% in. The story started to get repetitive. The suspense started to feel a bit stale since nothing was happening. The book got super slow. The ending, which the whole book leads up to, felt super rushed. I wished the trial at the end took up more of the book. I liked the vibes of this book, but the execution wasn't done super well.

What a dark tale of a young girl’s coming of age journey. I enjoyed how the author went back and forth between the past and the present, while still only revealing a little bit of the story at a time. It was a great way to show how Rachel’s choices as a teen effected her life.

Ahh, summer thrillers are the best. This would be a wonderful pool/beach book. Rachel makes you want to shake her during her summer in Greece but the naivety of teenagers is written well. Bishop really captures that time when you are technically an adult but still have the mind of a child. Adult Rachel though? Like, honey. C'mon! Be smarter than that. There was some excellent commentary about rape culture and how woman feel like it is their fault (it's not!) Check StoryGraph for some CWs because there definitely are some!

Wow, this was a super compulsive read! Written in a dual timeline between “then” and “now” we hear the story of Rachel who spent a sun drenched summer slinging drinks in a beach bar on a Greek island and falling in love for the first time with a man named Alastair. She was only 17, and he was 37. Fast forward 15 years to find Rachel married and unfulfilled, partly because she has lived those years in a time warp reliving that magical summer and that love affair. Rachel’s husband takes her back to that island for a much needed get away and with the hoping she will find her sparkle again and new life might be rekindled in their relationship. But instead, Rachel is forced into a dark awakening. She needs to reconcile the realities of that fateful summer in order to take control of her future and find contentment. This story is powerful and a little heavy as a book that will join the “me too” group of literature. I think fans of My Dark Vanessa and Night Swim will appreciate this one. Thank you Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press and the author for this eARC in exchange for my honest review. This book will be available for purchase on June 6, 2023

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for the free book. 3.5/5
This book is one that I will be thinking about for a while. Rachel, in the past timeline, made me feel so much for her. She was a girl who thought she was in control and getting one thing, while not seeing the big picture. I liked how Bishop handled this topic with care. She wasn't afraid to explore the gritty side of teenagers 'partying' with older men, yet Rachel never felt older in the past timeline than the seventeen/eighteen year old girl she was. However, I did find it harder to spend time with the timeline with Rachel as an adult. I understood her decisions, but it was so hard to watch at times. Bishop had a way of unfurling the plot to keep me fully invested in where this story was going. I do wish the pacing had been a bit different. I feel like it would've been more powerful to spend a bit more time in the events that happened after 90% of the book. But this book is timely and important, and I think it will resonate with lots of readers.

THE GIRLS OF SUMMER
Katie Bishop

THE GIRLS OF SUMMER is both more than I expected and less than I wanted it to be.

Questions of consent, a handful of messy characters, and a vacation that turns into a lifestyle-what else could you ask for out of the next BIG book of the summer?

Apparently, a lot!

THE GIRLS OF SUMMER is the story of Rachel and the summer she’ll never forget. Rachel went on vacation in the Greek Islands only to end up staying longer than intended. She meets a man named Allistair who is sexy and older and mysterious. There is something about him that drives Rachel wild.

Years later, Rachel still hasn’t forgotten about her summer in Greece or Allistair. She is married and trying to create a life worth remembering yet is hiding parts of herself from her husband and it’s creating mixed results. She’ll never be the same after that fateful summer and maybe she doesn’t want to.

THE GIRLS OF SUMMER is approachable and thrilling and I was invested in the characters and the story from the beginning. My complaint is a big one and one I couldn't get over. The author gave me a character to hate with a cause that I wanted to fight for. A complete contradiction.

And I wish I didn’t feel so conflicted.

I appreciated seeing the question of consent explored through this lens. However, I felt the book normalized inappropriate behavior without being declarative enough in its message. I gave THE GIRLS OF SUMMER three stars for its mixed messages and for wasting an opportunity to talk about an important topic.

THE GIRLS OF SUMMER comes out on June 6, 2023.

Thanks to Netgalley, St. Martins Press, and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copies!

THE GIRLS OF SUMMER…⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rachel and Caroline are just 17 when they decide to take a year off school and travel to Greece. They find themselves on a small island meeting some other young women who work at a local bar. Rachel is the awkward one who is used to being in Caroline’s shadow but she gains attention from an older man (in his 30s), Alistair, and soon finds herself wanting to spend as many moments of her time with him before she is supposed to return home to London. The insular daily life grows on Rachel, her secret love affair with Alistair, upscale parties at a well known businessman’s house, giggling with a group of girls as they come and go from work at the bar, drinking and beach days. Almost 18 years later, Rachel and the group of girls from that summer reconnect and Rachel is forced to consider that the summer of love wasn’t quite as innocent as she once considered.

This book has been compared to My Dark Vanessa and that is a very apt comp. It is important to know that, despite the cover and title, this book is not a romance and not light. Difficult and trigger-worthy topics are taken on. If you have read My Dark Vanessa and are interested in the #metoo movement then I think this is a book for you.

It is difficult to say I really enjoyed this book given the topics it tackles but I would say that the author deftly and considerately takes the reader into the life of Rachel. The writing and pacing created a sense of suspense as well as the unfolding awareness by the main character of what really happened that summer held my attention. This is one of those books where you can see where the book is headed and wait for the character to come to the same realization. It is very well done!

I look forward to reading more by this author and if you can manage the content, highly recommend it to other readers. Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. The Girls of Summer comes out June 6, 2023.

I will add the trigger warnings to my Storygraph review if you want to check them out. I can be found
under the name Pomoevareads on Storygraph.

Thank you Netgalley & St. Martin's Press for an eARC of The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop!

This one was different from my typical reads, which I enjoyed. Not a "thriller" for me, but more of a psychological suspense with a mystery, atmospheric element.

The book follows Rachel, who's been in love with Alistair for 15 years, despite being married to someone else. She was a teen when they met on a remote Greek island. And he was 20 years her senior. Rachel becomes obsessed with reliving the events of that summer - Eventually reconnecting with the other girls she spent her time with on the island. The way they remember that summer is a lot different from the way she recalls it, though. Rachel's been suppressing secrets for years - and it's time that they come to light.

This book grapples with serious topics and themes such as sex, power, consent, trauma - And takes us from Rachel's arrival on the Greek island when she was 17 to where she is now - A woman in her early 30s who still doesn't quite understand just what happened to her that summer. This one sure gets you thinking, which I appreciate.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this author comes up with next!

I think this is a well written and intriguing story that is definitely worth the read if you're in the mood for something a bit dark and, at times, uncomfortable because it deals with some sad topics.

Rachel goes with her friend Caroline to a small Greek island at the end of their vacation. What should have been a short stay results in something more when Rachel (17) meets an older man, Alistair. If you are like me, then perhaps you're getting the idea that this is going to turn into a bad situation. There is definitely a little too much attention for the younger women on the island by older men.

While this story plays out, the present time is also being told every other chapter. Rachel is now married... (happily??? Doesn't seem so much??) And when they visit the island, Rachel seems a bit unbalanced by her past catching up to her.

This was a difficult read for me considering the topic, but overall, I thought it was well done.

Content warnings for rape, sexual assault, pregnancy issues

Out June 6, 2023!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

This book elicited so many feelings from me… not all what I expected to feel. I wanted to reach in the book and slap the FMC on more than one occasion but I do believe that’s what was intended so I have to say, well done.
I listened to the audio along with reading the digital version and the narrator, Annabel Scholey, is what really made the book for me. She was very in tuned with the emotions of the story.
This one is rife with sensitive topics so please check TW before you read.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the early review copies.

I was really looking for a book to get me into the summer mood, and this one had the perfect setting!! I loved the idea of backpacking to a beautiful tropical island and just seeing what the world had to offer. I didn’t expect the book to get so morbid and troubling, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless. The storyline kept me on the edge of my seat and it was nice to see everything fall into place at the end.

Rachel is 17 the summer she arrives on a remote Greek island and meets Alistair. He is 20 years old but charming and quickly sweeps her off her feet. Things quickly spiral out of control with Rachel and her friends though and almost 20 years later, Rachel is forced to revisit that summer and everything that really happened.

This is a tough subject to cover and hard to read about. But it was well written and the writing really put me in Rachel's shoes. Rachel wasn't real likable and it was hard to feel sorry for her, especially when she was essentially ignoring the trauma her friends were experiencing. But she was also 17 years old so it was pretty believable.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Publishing for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Available June 6, 2023.

I had a really hard time getting into this one bc of the very descriptive, repetitive writing style - this felt more like litfic style writing (which i don’t mind, i just wasn’t expecting that going into this). the present day chapters became a slog to get through because it was just our MC being like ‘i can’t believe i came back here where i have this HUGE SECRET and this THING HAPPENED in my past but i won’t TELL you anything about it’ over and over. the past chapters that actually tell the story seemed fine but i just was not captivated enough to finish.