I know what The Girls of Summer was trying to be. I don’t think it worked for me. So many things were overly written and they added nothing to the plot. The younger version of Rachel was just naive while the older version was just unlikable. Literally in the first present day chapter she complains about her husband being too compliant and making her go somewhere she doesn’t want to go. Then she leaves him to find a gross old guy who was never in any way someone anyone should be looking for. These books written as if love, romance, and even lust, have to be these all consuming things that make you act stupid are really kind of part of the problem this book tries to address.

The Girls of Summer is a coming-of-age story that bounces from current-day to teenage years of the main character Rachel. Set amidst an Epstein-esque Greek resort town and bar, Rachel struggles to find her way, falling in amidst crowds of girls in very #metoo moments. Full of heartbreak, cringeworthy behavior from much older men in power, and the quest for love and validation, we follow Rachel as she begins to discover who she really is. I highly recommend this title!

I enjoyed this audiobook, and thought it was well-produced with a good narrator that was engaging and easy to understand.

I was not a huge fan of the female main character (this is most likely a personal preference), as I found her decisions to be immature and child-like despite her age of 17 when the story in Greece took place. I appreciated her difficulties in living a "normal" life after her summer, but I also had a hard time empathizing when she had the means to make things better and her feelings different with some help. I also had a hard time with her relationship dynamics, however, I appreciated how their divorce was not malicious.

Generally, I thought this was a good book with a well-developed story and characters.

This was a deep coming-of-age exploration of being young, seeking adventure and the exploitation that comes with naïveté.

I was very frustrated with the main character due to her willingness to sacrifice almost anything for love. The Author touches on how predators use many facades to persuade young girls into sex trafficking. These women are groomed or become so dependent on people they trust that they often don’t even realize it. They are led down a path of destruction that can ruin or take their lives. It is told in alternating chapters between the present and the past.
*****
Rachel goes on a summer of discovery with her friend Caroline before they finish their final year of school. They end up traveling and staying in hostels; visiting beautiful places and feeling the cusp of their newfound independence.

But their friendship is shaken when they are in the Greek isles and Rachel has decided not to return home. She has fallen for an older man that she is enamored with. He has given them and other young girls jobs, a place to live, and nights partying with wealthy men.

Rachel believes she has a future with Alistar and believes he has their best interests at heart. But when tragedy strikes it opens the eyes of many to the reality of the lies they’ve been living.

Rachel is in denial but gets blindsided when Alistar disappears. It will all come full circle when she is forced to reckon with the secrets she’s held almost a decade later and the truth of the past is revealed.

If this summer debut isn’t on your radar, you definitely need to add it! The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop is an atmospheric, slow build, heartbreaking summer read that will have you transported to a small Greek Island in the heat of summer. I devoured this one from start to finish.

Think dual timeline, single POV, slow build, mystery where the reader knows more than the characters as the story unfolds. Seventeen-year-old Rachel is having the summer of a lifetime. Traveling, drinking, making new friends, and even finding love in the most unexpected of ways. Her summer love with Alistair has consumed her for over sixteen years, even though now she is married to Tom and living a life she never dreamed would be hers. When a chance meeting with one of the other girls she spent that summer with makes her start to question everything she remembers, we are taken on a journey that will change everything she thinks happened during that fateful summer.

I was CONSUMED with this story. I was transported to this place. I swear I would smell the sea and feel the salt on my skin. The way this story was written really worked well for me. I loved the small reveals over time and the natural way this came together so beautifully. Please note, this is a heartbreaking one and could be triggering to some readers. The way Bishop shows how easy it is, especially as a young girl, to be completely taken in and manipulated by older, very powerful men was so authentic. I remember so vividly being that age and could put myself in Rachel’s shoes.

The synopsis says it so well: Look for themes of power, sex, consent and the role of memories and trauma.

Pick this one up if you like:

-Emotional reads
-Slow build mysteries
-Single POV
-Dual Timeline
-Character Driven plot

**I listened to this on an audio. Absolutely fantastic narration! Again, this one was brought to life on audio in a way that added to the story, setting, and nature of this book. If you are an audiobook lover, this one gets all my recommendations.

I don't think I really knew what I was getting into with this one. I'm STILL thinking about it.

Rachel spends the summer before her 6th term in Greece - working and boarding for free with other young women. However, when Rachel befriends some girls from the village, she hears murmurs that living at Henry Taylor's house, and working for Henry Taylor, may not be everything it is lauded to be. Blurry nights, lost memories, secret trysts...it's all normal for a 17 year old, right?

Ten years later, Rachel confronts memories of her summer there when she re-establishes contact with some of her friends from the island. As more stories are told, Rachel must confront the truth of both her memory and her trauma.

*I couldn't stop making connections between Epstein and his cronies with Henry Taylor. The author's note did not address this connection, so this is merely my own connection. The author did address the #metoo movement, and how many, MANY women realized that nonconsensual incidences (and manipulation) are not what men may play them off as: they're sexual assault.

I loved this book. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't recommend it enough. However, there are some serious content warnings: sexual assault and grooming.

Another great summer read: The chapters in this book switch back and forth between Rachel as a teenager on a Greek island, to present day Rachel on the same Greek Island. Rachel travels down memory lane, as she remembers her wild adventures as a teenager on the island. However, she starts to realize not everything was as it seemed back then. Secrets unfold, and it will keep you immersed in the book until the very end.

The author’s note explains what this is about perfectly….”The girls of Summer explores the gray area of consent.” The author did exactly that.

It missed the mark a little for me because it was incredibly wordy and was a bit slow. The characters were a bit flat and I wasn’t a fan of any of them.

However, the story served its purpose in showing how the MC, Rachel, was so pliable at her young age and mistaking what she was doing for having power when she was really being used and manipulated by an older man.

It’s def got some Epstein vibes, if ya know what I mean. It’s like a fictionalized book about him and his private island residence. I could totally see this happening in real life…oh wait it did…well to be accurate it DOES still happen, which is terrifying. So many young people are exploited while they are thinking they are in control.

This one could be very triggering for some so please check trigger warnings. It’s a #metoo book.

Overall it was a decent read, the premise is memorable, the story not so much. It’s sort of like the Epstein documentary just more dramatized (not that it needed to be because it was already so awful).

Def worth checking out especially if you like a slow burn. It had a good audio narrator too.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC! I want to start off by saying that the narration was excellent! The audiobook version is very well executed, unfortunately this was just far too slow for me. I was finding myself bored and unable to focus throughout as we kept hearing about a secret with no information (I wanted to know, but not enough to keep me engaged) and the synopsis was described more like a thriller/mystery thriller which this is not. It’s a slow burn, character journey but was too slow for me with the superfluous descriptive writing - well done, just not my cup of tea.

I know this isn't the kind of book you "enjoy", but rather you read and learn, trying to gain a rational view of the irrational. I have read a few similar books, My Dark Vanessa being a favorite of mine, and felt like I got what I needed to from the novel.

I didn't feel that way here. It got way too tedious. Adult Rachel's obsession and naïve lack of awareness grated on my nerves to the point where ever time she said "Alistair" I wanted to slap her. Maybe that was the point, but it seemed way overdone and drew my sympathy away from her character. While Teen Rachel was young and at least had the excuse of inexperience, Adult Rachel was a hot, selfish mess who had no excuses.

It wasn't the inappropriate relationship or non-consensual activities that threw me off this one. It was how childishly Adult Rachel was written, and how slowly the story unfolded. It wasn't until halfway in that we finally see why we're here, why this isn't just some silly schoolgirl's fantasy travelogue describing how SOME GUY (MY DAD'S AGE) FINALLY THINKS I'M HOT, and then the adult woman's obsessive fantasies about that same man because she never grew past it. By then I'd lost my patience.

This was a really beautiful story unfolding, the reader watches it unfold from the past and present as the main character comes to realize that she may be remembering her past summer in the wrong light.

DNF @ 43% But this is a case of it's not the book, it's me.

If you like twisty, suspenseful thriller/dramas, this would be perfect as a summer beach read. But for me, cheating is a no-go, and when the wife decides to cheat on her husband with an old flame, and doesn't feel any remorse, it took me out of the story completely and I decided it wasn't worth the emotional energy to finish it. I was already on the fence because the wife was taking birth control and hiding it from her husband, while he was thinking they were trying to conceive. The cheating was just the nail in the coffin.

It was a good reminder as to why I mostly read romance. I love those happy endings.

The writing was good! I liked the dual timelines. The format of the story was interesting, and the plot was well-paced. The audiobook narrator's performance was fantastic. There were enough hints and foreshadowing to keep me interested and guessing as to what would happen next, but I just didn't care enough about the ending to put up with the infidelity.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rachel backpacked to a Greek island as a 17 year old and her heart never came home with her. Falling for an older man, Alistair, Rachel has never really recovered from the man that literally got away. So what happened all those years ago? Why is Rachel so rocked and so stuck on the past? What went down on this remote Greek island that has her so reluctant to travel down memory lane.

This #metoo era read takes on a whole new perspective. Author Katie Bishop does the literary world a service by showing another angle of the depths of mankind as readers are rocked to the core of events through Rachel's point of view. This hard to read, but important and heavy book was wickedly spot on.

3.5 ⭐️ Years following their summer love affair in Greece, Rachel, who’s now married to Tom, is still consumed with thoughts of Alister and the intensity of their relationship. Determined to revisit the past, Rachel reconnects with the women who spent that fateful summer with her. Soon, long buried secrets are resurfacing and Rachel must choose between the life she left behind and the life she has since made for herself.

For a debut, the author did an exquisite job flushing out each of the central characters, and allowing us to understand their motivations and the sometimes poor decisions they made. Although somewhat of a suspense novel, in many ways It is a character study and an examination of what happens when we view a relationship one way, only to realize we were looking through the wrong lens.

Told in past and present format, I found myself more drawn into the past and wanting to learn about what had happened that impacted their lives to the extent that it did. I so applaud the author’s motivations and what she was trying to do with The Girls of Summer. However, something fell flat for me within the execution.

My biggest issue, and I’m finding this more lately, is that the pacing and structure felt off to me. It had a slower start, then gained a bit of a steam, slowed down again and then grabbed me again at the conclusion. This kept me at arms length throughout, as I was never fully pulled in to the story.

All in all, this is still an intriguing and suspenseful read with an important message at its core.

Read if you like:
•literary mysteries
•character driven stories
•dual timelines
•emotional reads
•slow burn

TW: Yes. Please DM me.

Thank you {partners} St. Martin’s Press and Macmillan Audio for my gifted copies.

I love a good romance book and this did not disappoint. Well developed, characters, witty banter, what more can you ask for?

Thank you to NetGalley MacMillan Audio and Katie Bishop for this thought provoking novel about teenage insecurity, naivety and longing to belong. The things we tell ourselves to belong and to believe we are worthy of love.

While the author's note says the book is about the You2 movement, I think the book is a clear illustration of how we mask what we did as a teenager and how we want so badly to believe things were the way we believed, rather than understanding that most of what we remember or believe was our teenage self telling us the story we wanted to believe.

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!

Thanks to Macmillan Audio for the ALC.
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 narration is fantastic and Annabel Scholey was able to capture Rachel and all of her complexities and conflicting emotions so well.

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…⭐️⭐️⭐️

I wanted to get past my dislike for Rachel’s willing ignorance of her surroundings, but I simply could not. I feel like the line was drawn in the worst way.

Rachel was a cheater and a protector of a predator and she made me furious at every single turn. She spent the first 90% of this book “KNOWING” that the man she idolized was a good person and the last 10% having finally come to terms with the truth and was integral to bringing him down? This baffles me because the author did this on purpose.

I have read books where the main character must slowly come to terms with a truth she has been manipulated into not seeing. I have lived situations where I didn’t yet see that something I thought was beautiful at the time was, in fact, predatorial. Although, the way that Rachel is written doesn’t feel like that. Instead she felt purposely naive and incredibly selfish.