1. This is bad
2. It is summer
3. There are people

So, unlike Beach Read, no one lied. However, this is the biggest pile of rich white people problems I have ever read.

You know how some white people get mad when another BIPOC book is written, even though it's probably 0.01% of the industry? And say they can't relate? Well, I can't relate...

🎧 Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio

The characters weren't good people; however, I couldn't empathize with any of them in any way. The many characters are way too flat and uninteresting even though they are greatly interested in themselves and what everyone else is doing.

I wanted to love this book so much. I was excited to read it. But I really ended up not being as into or intrigued by the story. I love books about unlikeable people so that wasn't a problem. I think this book suffered from too many characters and it just did not grab me. I forgot I was reading it for a week which never happens.

Another case of rich people doing bad things and getting away with it, but with tennis! I typically don't love books that switch POV every chapter because first of all there are too many characters to keep straight and you don't get as much time to connect with the characters. I didn't love the story but really enjoyed all the tennis and how the characters took it more seriously than Wimbledon.

Bad Summer People follows multiple extremely rich characters as they spend their summer vacation on Fire Island. They are all terrible people and the reader follows as these terrible people are… well… terrible lol. But although they all spend every summer on Fire Island together this summer is different. This summer ends in a murder.

This is a classic rich people behaving badly story. I’ve seen it compared to The White Lotus a lot but I’m not able to comment on that. I’ve never seen that show. But I think everyone knows what I mean by “rich people behaving badly.” It’s fun to see. They’re the kind of characters everyone loves to hate. I did enjoy that. It was entertaining and fast paced. I know a lot of people read just for lighthearted entertainment and a fast paced story so I’m sure people like that would LOVE this book.

But unfortunately the entertainment that came with rich people being terrible was the only thing I enjoyed about this book. It’s promoted as a mystery but the mystery and murder are very much afterthoughts in this book. And that would be completely fine with me if Bad Summer People weren't labeled as a mystery/thriller. I think the writing was just alright and the plot wasn’t very interesting. I don’t have any huge complaints. I just don’t think it has much to offer overall.

I don’t think there’s any need for anyone to run off and read this book. I won’t actively advise against it but I don’t think Bad Summer People has anything interesting or exciting to offer anyone as a read. And ESPECIALLY not as a “mystery.”

There is a distinct hierarchy, with the people, who have family ties to Fire Island going back generations, leading the posse. There are observers who watch and lurk, others who feel it is their business to regulate relationships and disseminate the interactions they observe. Affairs are happening, business deals failing and bitchy bullying aplenty. We know from the outset that someone has died by the end of the Summer sojourn, but who that person is and how their death has come about remains a mystery until the end.

The novel really does have a lot of characters to keep tabs on, although the main players do rise to the surface and capture the reader’s attention. The number of people who amble through the pages does, nevertheless, feel a little daunting and it can be a pressure to keep track of them all. In then main, they are unpleasant folk to spend time with, although her depiction of the people is savvy and sharp. To be honest, the author creates a very unattractive scenario, thus, quite why the New Yorkers fall over themselves to spend their time competitively jostling with their neighbours for a whole Summer season is really beyond me.

There is a good sense of place in the story and I read this novel on the beach in a day, and that was a great way to enjoy this story.

This is a domestic suspense novel full of people we love to hate. There are very few redeeming qualities for these people who are privileged and all have secrets. Was I interested? A little. It's hard to not get drawn into the world they live in. The writing is good and I'd read another by this author. The narration was great and made it easier to stay in the moment of the book!

New Review:

Bad Summer People
By: Emma Rosenblum
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (3.5/5)

First of all, thank you to @netgalley for the free copy!

Bad Summer People was such a wild ride! The story is set in Salcombe, Fire Island. It follows a group of upper class families that vacation there every summer. They own huge Summer houses, obsess over tennis, and have an insane amount of scandals along the way. One scandal in particular, involving a dead body, proves that their lives aren't as perfect as they all make them out to be.

I enjoyed this one! I actually listened to it via an audiobook from Netgalley. Most of the characters were extremely unlikable, although that was entirely the point. It was a fun Rollercoaster ride and a good summer read!

#badsummerpeople #emmarosenblum

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ALC of "Bad Summer People" by Emma Rosenblum. I love a good beach read, and this fit the bill. Vacation and a dead body that everyone seemed to have some connections around. I appreciate good writing that involves going back in time to see what led up to the events our characters find themselves in. There is ALWAYS more to the story and these characters sure lived up to it..

I absolutely loved listening to Bad Summer People. Once I wrapped my head around all of the characters and their connections with each other, it felt like I was listening to the a salacious tale of the top 1%. While this would make a perfect beach read, I think it might be even better for the winter blues. I can’t stop recommending it!

Thank you to the publisher for a copy of this audiobook.

BAD SUMMER PEOPLE was a pleasant surprise. I'd say it was comparable to Ashley Audrain's THE WHISPERS in terms of drama, neighborhood intrigue, classist behaviors, and twisty surprises. These people are rich, pretentious, competitive, deceptive, and frankly pretty interesting to spend the summer with. This book by Emma Rosenblum hit the mark for me-- so did the narration. I listened to a conversation with the author and fellow novelist Chandler Baker, and while Emma is lesser known, she definitely wrote the better book in 2023. This is what CUTTING TEETH and Jamie Day's THE BLOCK PARTY were trying to do, only this one worked.

BAD SUMMER PEOPLE was such a fun summer read with all the secrets, lies. and drama.

I absolutely binge read this in one sitting, and found myself completely immersed into the story of the rich behaving badly.

🎧The audiobook was great, and I loved the narration.

WHAT TO EXPECT
-rich behaving badly
-debut
-multiple POVs
-domestic drama
-summery vibes
-Tennis

*many thanks to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for the gifted copy for review

I had trouble getting into this book. I wanted to like it but couldn't quite get into the characters or the storyline. Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the ARC.

I usually love rich people drama, but this one didn't really do it for me. I think I didn't love the rich people cheating drama. Or just maybe there just weren't enough good people in this one to make up for all the bad. I don't know the reason for not loving it as much as I was expecting. But it was a fun read either way.

I absolutely love this rich people behaving badly story! Hot, sexy rich people can’t help by hook up with others and despite the consequences, they continue to get into sticky situations. I personally don’t mind reading about unlikeable characters. We find out early someone dies, but it’s not until the end that we find out who. And I literally gasped when we got to that part!!

Fire island was a hot location for summer books this year and this was a stellar example.

Thank you to @flatiron_books for this incredible summer book and debut novel.

While listening to this, my phone stopped working. Once I received my new phone and downloaded the Netgalley app I lost all my downloaded audiobooks. I was unable to finish.

Bad Summer People, by Emma Rosenblum, reminds me of an Elin Hilderbrand summer beach novel...except all the characters in the book are really unlikeable! I loved reading about rich people behaving badly on Fire Island, and getting a glimpse inside the wealth, privilege, and bad choices.

Phew! This book had a ton of POVs so it took a little while to get into, but once I wrapped my head around who everyone was, I flew through it and really enjoyed it. It was addictive, soapy fun filled with unlikeable characters, secrets, lies, and all the drama. Combined with the beach setting, it made for a great summer read. I listened to the audiobook and thought the narrator did a wonderful job!

#AudiobookReview 🎧📖
Bad Summer People | Emma Rosenblum
My thanks to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for the review copy



I am SO ready for fall but since the world is burning - it’s near 90 degrees in New England in September. The perfect time to read Bad Summer People.



This one has BIG beach read vibes.



Within the first third of this read I thought “messy, messy, messy” and lol’d because that’s totally a @shellysbookcorner phrase.



The title is accurate here, scads of rich, white people these pages acting quite badly indeed: toxic friendships (the women AND the men both), affairs galore, sniping, gossip and draaaaamaaa. There’s also a dead body right as we open: a case of whodunit AND a mystery of who IS it need to be solved…



I liked:
The narrator was perfectly cast, January LaVoy knocked it out of the park.



The mystery of who was dead was a good one.



What didn’t work for me:
There were a few too many characters and they got redundant and made things confusing.



Everything after finding out who was dead and how…I needed a short epilogue “five years later” and not any of the rest of that long ending.



🎶Book as a Song Lyric: You'll never live like common people/You'll never do whatever common people do/You'll never fail like common people/You'll never watch your life slide out of view/And you dance and drink and screw/Because there's nothing else to do…” -Common People by Pulp



📺 Vibes: Real Housewives meets 80’s soaps?



⚠️CW/TW: infidelity, fatphobia, alcohol, alcoholism, drug use, classism, toxic friendships, language (F bombs, the C word etc), divorce, rich white people upholding white supremacy, infertility and negative comments about IVF, “casual” false talk about suicide - ie: male histrionics “it made him want to kill himself” but he’s not actually suicidal etc, racism, death of parents, misogyny, & content around #MeToo, sexual assault charges and false accusations that I wish hadn’t been a plot line at all…

I'm a big fan of a rich-people-behaving-badly book and we get that in spades here!

Set over the course of one summer on Fire Island, we are following several families with a shared history who have summer houses in the town of Salcombe. From the start we see that behind everyone's shiny facade are secrets and lies and problems bubbling. Let the games begin!

Out of the gate we know that a body has been found and then we go back to the day everyone arrives on the island and work towards the who/what/why of the dead body. Love.

We get chapters from different POVs and there are a lot of characters in this book - both mains and side characters - so yes it did take me a bit to get everyone down and to get into the book. Each chapter gives us a lot of backstory on each character which bogged me down. I understand it was a storytelling choice.

Once the story got going I was hooked and enjoyed all the devilish choices these people make. I did have my suspicions (lots of suspect here!) and did enjoy how it ended. A fun, bingeable time.