I was really excited to dive into this book after reading the synopsis as the premise seemed very promising. Cycling, body positivity, romance, mom issues, online dating and much more, Jennifer Weiner as always delivers by not shying away from important and sensitive topics, which are bound to unsettle some readers.

Religious people will find this book’s stance on abortion quite problematic, avid cyclists will have a lot of questions about the weight of the protagonist, seasoned romance readers will not find anything new in the love story. I, personally, found the book to be predictable and thus a tad too long for my taste. I did enjoy reading it once the book was in my hands, but I had to force myself to keep coming back to it. I did not find everything in this story believable and it definitely took away from the experience. I don’t want to reveal anything of the plot, but a fat cycling enthusiast who rides dozens of miles daily, really? You will struggle to come across this person in the wild.

All in all, I would label this book an enjoyable light read if you don’t dig any deeper. However, digging deeper is what the author seems to want and for me the two simply did not work together. If you enjoy quirky characters paired with the plot that carries a strong political message, pick this up for your August beach read! Otherwise, you are safe to pass this one up.

<i>I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the Advanced Reader Copy of this book.</i>

I really enjoy this author and was looking forward to this book. The best part was the bike ride that goes through NYS - and actually through my town! Added to that, I know people who love to ride bicycles so I was very excited to read this book.
The character development was well done. You really felt like you knew the people with all their quirks and flaws.
I did struggle a bit with some of the topics that were introduced and how they were handled. I felt like these things were to simplistic and pat. It also leaned to the left politically which I really don't love when I'm reading for escapism.
All in all, I was entertained, but not awed.

Weiner's novels are very hit-or-miss for me, and this was unfortunately one of the misses. The good: a plus-sized heroine with a healthy attitude about her body despite both cultural attitudes and a hyper-critical mother. An adventure feel to the story as our heroine, Abby, leads a group bicycle trip across New York State. A positive side story of a teen getting support for an abortion. Some resolution of the rough mother-daughter relationship. What didn't work for me: Abby was just really unlikable, and this kind of a novel needs an MC you want to root for. Her treatment of both her loving, awesome boyfriend, and her hookup bothered me. Her hookup, who faces a personal crisis when called out on TikTok for sleeping with pretty much every woman in NYC, has never once felt any glimmer for any of the hundreds of women he's slept with except for Abby - despite the fact that we're never shown anything remarkable or special about their hookup. While I appreciated the abortion side story, it felt like it was crammed into the novel for political reasons and didn't really mesh with the story as a whole. And on a personal note, Weiner's clear disdain and contempt for Peloton riders alienated me from the beginning, and I struggled to get past that given how valuable Peloton has been in my own fitness journey. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for a digital review copy.

** spoiler alert ** After reading Jennifer Weiner's book "Mrs. Everything" I became a fan. Her newest book "The Breakaway" is the third book I've read by Jennifer Weiner and I was eagerly anticipating this book after receiving an Advanced Reader edition for my Kindle. I confess I was feeling a little disappointed when I first started reading this book for a couple of reasons: 1) I felt like the summary provided in the book book description "gave away" a major plot point (Sebastian joining the bike trip); 2) I struggled to find Sebastian a likable character due to his "serial dating" history, which Weiner attributed to attachment issues with his mother during his childhood; 3) Abby's POV of herself due to her weight could be labeled as a potential "trigger warning" for people who struggle with this personally.

HOWEVER, having faith in Jennifer Weiner, I stuck with the book and I found it more enjoyable as the book progressed due to the inclusion of additional plot points which hadn't been revealed in the original book synopsis. One thing I enjoy/appreciate when reading Jennifer Weiner's book is her ability to weave current reality into her books, making them especially timely. For example, there are brief mentions of the COVID pandemic, vaccinations, etc. as it was naturally part of the conversation between characters in a book set in 2023. Weiner also had a few mentions of white privilege (minus the word white) when her characters were reflecting on their path in life and what obstacles they did (or did not) face. As someone who personally enjoys cycling, I enjoyed that element of the book. I also prefer books with a strong sense of place, so the sprinkling of tidbits about the places they visited on their bike trip across New York State (map included at the beginning of the book) was a plus. I found the last 1/3 of the book especially readable and interesting, and I enjoyed the ending. I am looking forward to reading future woks by Jennifer Weiner!

***SPOILER ALERT****

Another timely and relevant element Jennifer Weiner includes is the current reality young women are facing in states where abortion is no longer a medical service being provided. **Trigger warning**

This review is based on the Kindle ARC I received from NetGalley.

She does it again! Jennifer Weiner is a favorite for me. Even when a book has a topic I don’t know about and normally wouldn’t gravitate towards like this one she still manages to get me to interested and committed. I loved it!

The breakaway by Jennifer Weiner
33 year old Abby Stern is on the cusp of marrying her childhood sweetheart from fat camp Mark Medoff, she has great friends. So why does she feel like her relationship with Mark is missing something and she can’t get a proper career going? She’s dropped out of university programs, she’s working for a dog walking company with no real direction in her life. So when an opportunity to lead a bike trip from NYC to Niagara Falls falls into her lap she reluctantly grabs the opportunity to get away to think over her relationship with Mark. One of the participants of the bike trip turns out to be a one night stand from two years ago, Sebastian. Could he be part of the reason why is she can’t seem to see a future with Mark?

Abby has always been overweight and for the most part she’s been fine with it that is aside from her mother making her feel bad about it and sending her to fat camps every summer against her wishes when she was a kid. Abby rather ride her bike and go to theatre camp but her mother is too obsessed with her weight, her looking good for pictures and having her lose it. So when she also just turns up to join the bike trip she is shocked and not too pleased.

Through the bike ride and dealing with her conflicting emotions surrounding Mark, Sebastian, her mother Abby and in dealing with secrets of the other bike riders she is forced to come to terms with who she really wants to be and who she is becoming.

Overall, I enjoyed the novel however, it very heavily brought up a lot of political issues and agendas. This was a little bit much for my liking as it seemed at times a bit forced. Definitely topics that need to be talked about however, there were a lot in my opinion. I didn’t feel like I connected a lot with the main character. There were multiple viewpoints also in this novel besides Abby. The relationship between Abby and Sebastian is sweet and I did enjoy that part. It was a nice easy read however, it wasn’t all that engaging for me personally.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange, for my honest opinion.

This was a cute, camp-y type read. I enjoyed the relationships between the characters. Initially, the frequent POV swaps had my head spinning but it eventually evened out. I had a grandmother that would treat me similarly to the way the MCs mother treated her, empathy abounds. The author did weave the abortion issue into the story and I’m so glad she did! Healing & understanding cannot happen when everything we don’t like is swept under the rug. Secrecy is the weapon of choice for most villains…. I received this ARC from the publisher, author, and NetGalley. This is my unbiased opinion. Thank you!

What an epic ride this book was. Abby Stern took a chance on more than leading a bike group on a 2 week trip. Out of her comfort zone on so many levels, she is forced to examine existing relationships while building unexpected ones. I loved watching Abby come into her own through the course of this novel and really become who she has always wanted to be and knew deep in her heart. I loved relationship between mother daughter and with all of the travelers in this group. This book will have you cheering for Abby and her decisions to fall deeper in love with herself and the unexpected relationships that unravel.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book was almost a DNF for me, since I don't like cheating (especially when the partner is kind and it seems truly unwarranted). It dealt with a lot of important topics, and I enjoyed the cast of characters, but a lot of their decisions seemed convenient for the plot and unrealistic/faithful to their overall portrayal.

⭐️: 4/5

When Abby agrees to lead a weeks long cycling trip, she’s happy to have time away from her life (and her almost fiancé) to reflect on what it is she really wants, but things get complicated when one of the members of the trip, Sebastian, turns out to be the same man that she had a one-night stand with years ago, one that she still can’t get out of her mind. Along with the last minute addition to the trip of her mother, Abby is forced to reconsider the things she thought she knew about herself, her life, and love.

I have never read a book by Jennifer Weiner before, but they always come highly recommended so a lot of them have been on my radar for a while, and getting this one as an ARC was really exciting because it meant I’d finally have an excuse to read one! From the start, The Breakaway is compulsively readable in a vacation/summer travel book kind of way, which was perfect, since I’m reading it in the summer when I wish I could jump on a bike and get away from my real life 😂 Initially, it starts out as mainly from Abby’s POV, but it begins to open up to more and more POVs of the different riders in the group of main characters. This allowed a lot more side stories to be introduced, which definitely made it a more compelling read, since you start to feel a connection to more characters than just the main couple. I really liked the representation of different body sizes, since it can get exhausting reading the same rom coms where it’s driven home just how tiny and perfectly shaped the FMC is. I also loved how the social issue of a woman’s right to choose is brought up in this book, and how it highlights just how important access to affordable and safe abortions is. It’s so timely and necessary to keep this issue in the forefronts of people’s minds, because of how backwards the current SCOTUS decisions have been. I really enjoyed this book, and I’ll definitely be picking up more by this author in the future!

Thank you to @netgalley and @atriabooks for this eARC in exchange for my honest review!!

Breakaway reads fairly well but things seemed too convenient. Some of the relationships appeared superficial such as when mothers shared past life events with their daughters, and the relationship between Abby, the main character, and Sebastian, a former hookup, who is on the bicycle trip she is leading. However, some serious topics were dealt with well.

This was just a really enjoyable read. I was rooting for the characters and the plot, which as a non biker I wondered if I’d appreciate, was well-paced and fun.

*ARC provided via NetGalley

A Rough Journey

The Breakaway is a women’s fiction novel about a woman leading a bike tour trying to decide her future. To do so, she must confront her past and her present choices.

34-year-old Abby finds herself in a quandary after her seemingly perfect boyfriend proposes to move in together. Her hesitation to his proposal prompts her to take a job leading a bike tour through New York State. On day one of the tour, to Abby’s surprise, two unexpected guests arrive to participate: her one-night stand from two years ago and her overly critical mother.

Abby is the MC, and the majority of the chapters are from her perspective. We also experience the POV of Sebastian, Abby’s one-night stand, and some of the other travelers.

I had some issues with this book--to start--I didn’t love Abby and Sebastian. Abby seems typical of Weiner’s characters--overweight, insecure and has mother issues. She blames others for her problems.

Sebastian is a self-described f*ck boy. Need I say more? Why I was supposed to root for him over Abby’s boyfriend Mark (whose flaws were that he didn’t eat dessert and didn’t bike) over a man in his 30s who never had a long-term relationship (only one night stands) was baffling. Since he and Abby only had a physical connection, there was no explanation for why she was the one for him.

Thankfully, both characters develop, but it took me until the 80% mark to start to like them. I found the POVs of others on the bike tour more compelling.

The novel’s biggest flaw is competing storylines. There is Abby’s story and another involving focused on a woman’s right to choose. I appreciate Weiner weaving in the storyline about a woman's right to choose, but since it didn’t relate to Abby, it felt disconnected from the main storyline and didn’t get the full attention it deserved--it also wrapped up a little too conveniently.

There were more minuses than pluses, but the character growth and ending made this worth reading in the end.


TW: abortion

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Atria Books in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely love Jennifer Weiner's books and this was just as great as her others. Loved the setting and the characters. The ending was as expected! Looking forward to recommending this novel in late August. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

I was so thrilled to have the opportunity to read Jennifer Weiner's new release - which looked like the perfect beach read!
Confidence in your own realistic body? Check.
A battle of past and present love interests? Check.
Progressive social issues? Check.
Adventures from NYC to Niagara? Check!

This book was so fun to read, despite having a LOT going on. I loved that each character had their own baggage and issues to deal with. And appreciated the realistic mother/daughter relationship that progressed throughout the story. I especially enjoyed the bike tour, since I recently went on my own (road) trip from New York to the Falls!

Thank you so much for NetGalley and Atria Books for the eARC of "The Breakaway" in exchange for my honest opinion.

To be very honest, when I first started reading this book, I wasn't sure I could make it through. Weiner's words, through the protagonist of Abby, simply hit far to close to home for me. I had just finished a therapy session where I talked about how I constantly tried to make myself feel or seem smaller in life, because I feel like i'm always the biggest person in the room, how I was trying to at least be at peace with the bigger body I am currently in. And then I started reading this book.

Weiner has always had an unflinching view of her female protagonsits, most of which have always been women on the curvy side, and not in the early oughts, Renee Zellwegger in Bridget Jones' way, but in a very real, the average clothing size for women is a 16 kind of way. And that can be uncomfortable for someone who sees themselves in the character but is not comfortable with seeing themselves in that character. So I wasn't sure I was ready for 300+ pages of this.

But The Breakaway became something more than the main character and her weight. Yes it is a big part of the story, but it really becomes something more about female empowerment, about being healthy no matter your size, about the changing landscape of female reproductive health. At first, I thought Weiner was trying to fit too many hot button issues into one story, but I was wrong. They all come together so beautifully and poignantly. Weiner's characters all have some sort of, I hesitate to say flawed, but rather varied view on life, and the way they all deal with the events that unfold on this bike trip is grounded in reality and so beautifully done.

I think women of all kinds should read this book. There are various types of women dealing with various types of issues and I think everyone could benefit from some of the nuggets that get dropped along the way. There are some powerful passages that I know will stay with me.

Jennifer Weiner is a hit or miss author for me, and "The Breakaway" has great "bones," but it was mostly a miss for me. I liked the premise...a woman who is kind of lost in her life has the opportunity to lead a bike tour from NYC to Niagara Falls. When Abby is riding her bike, she is in her happy place and she uses this bike tour opportunity to think about her career, her relationship, and what she wants to do with her life. The bike tour introduces a lot of minor characters, including Abby's mother, who she has a strained relationship with, yet these characters are all well developed. The front half of the book showed some promise, but the back half plods along and quickly slides into a mess of politics, an unlikely and unbelievable romance, feminism and body positivity that came off as way too preachy, and a host of trigger warning subplots. I applaud Jennifer Weiner for writing about these important and very current topics. But I think many of her readers, who are looking for their next beach read, will not be satisfied with a plot that has nothing to do with a beach! 2.5 stars for me, but rounding up to 3 stars. Many thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy. The expected publication date is August 2023.

Whoa - does this book have a lot going on!

Abby is a 30something, over-weight cycler that ends up leading a bike ride with her only one night stand. That itself could have been a fun book, but then add in her current boyfriend, her crazy mom, and the whole bike group of craziness. Everyone is carrying a lot of baggage on the trip and everything gets wrapped up nicely in the end. I think there was a bit too much going on here, it made the book fast paced, but not as enjoyable as I think it could have been.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a temporary, digital ARC in return for my review.

I really enjoyed this book.I loved the mother/ daughter relationship. It’s nice to have a book about an overweight character that’s comfortable in her own skin..
Thank you for the arc of this book.

I really enjoyed this book although it was easy to see where the Abby/Sebastian storyline was going from the second he showed up on the bike tour. I knew nothing about cycling or these long distance rides you can go on with a guide so I found that aspect interesting. The book tackled difficult and timely topics such as abortion, fat shaming and mother/daughter relationships and I did like the multiple storylines. I felt like this was a departure from Weiner's last few books in that I wasn't totally interested in it right away but I did grow to like it and looked forward to seeing how it ended.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.