I have enjoyed Ethan Joella’s previous novels and was excited to be able to read his latest. The Same Bright Stars is a master class on character development as we are given such insight into Jack Schmidt, a 50-something year old man, trying to determine to continue running his family restaurant or to sell to a conglomerate. The novel is also a love letter to Rehobeth Beach, Delaware.

If you enjoy character driven novels, this book is for you. The author’s strength is in presenting ordinary people in a way that makes the reader feel as if they truly know them and then become invested in their lives. Ethan Joella will always be a must read author for me.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and Scribner for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

Ethan Joella books are always full of heart and this was no exception. I loved the setting and characters and found it to be a perfect summer read full of heartwarming moments.

Ethan Joella returns following A Quiet Life (5 stars) with his latest emotionally resonating and reflective literary fiction, THE SAME BRIGHT STARS —set in a Delaware beach small town, a local restaurant owner at a turning point in his life with some life-altering decisions to unravel.

About...

Set in the resort town of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Jack Schmidt, age 52, is a successful beachfront restaurant owner. He owns a three-generation family-owned company and has dedicated his life to the restaurant, employees, and community. However, he has neglected his personal life, family, and friends for work.

As he ages, he reflects on his life, realizing that he can't even recall the last time he took a moment for himself on the beach. His journey of self-discovery and longing for a simpler life will surely resonate with many readers.

When the larger DelDine group approaches him with an offer to take Schmidts off his hands, he has some decisions to make. But what would he be without the restaurant that has defined his life?

Can he trust this larger company to continue the legacy, honor his family's name, and take care of his employees?

He has money in the bank, and a business does not guarantee happiness. This is all he has known since his mother died when he was twelve. He has never had a family of his own.

When he receives some news from his past, he must decide if he is ready to let go of the things that have defined him his entire life. This internal struggle with his identity and the potential for a new beginning will keep readers hooked.

My thoughts...

Perceptive, heartfelt, and enlightening. There is always a little magic, heart, wisdom, and soul-searching, within the pages of Ethan Joella's novels.

Ethan Joella is a master storyteller, and THE SAME BRIGHT STARS is a testament to his skill. His introspective, reflective look at life in a small town and a man at a crossroads—a thought-provoking story of community, family, grief, legacy, and perseverance that readers will surely appreciate.

This heartwarming story is about community, relationships, family, and family, not blood-related, friends, and the unexpected ways those around us can transform us.

The author has a signature style and understands the human connections with his insightful well-developed characters who come alive on the page. From life's messiness, complexities, and struggles we learn from experiences to make us stronger to live the best life we can. After all, we only have one life, and we need to live it to the fullest. A beautiful, poignant life-affirming, and hopeful novel. I loved the letters and the Rehoboth Beach Guidebook.

THE SAME BRIGHT STARS is an emotional, resonant story about the power of human connection, time, death, grief, reflection, hope, forgiveness, community, and what it takes to live life without regrets.

Recs...

I highly recommend this author's books and writings. For Joella fans and those who enjoy books by Catherine Ryan Hyde, Elizabeth Berg, Fredrik Backman, Susan Fletcher, Suzanne Redfearn, and Gillian Jackson.

Thanks to Scribner for an advanced digital reading copy via NetGalley for an honest opinion.

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My Rating: 4.5 Stars (rounded to 5)
Pub Date: July 2, 2024
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I absolutely loved this book. I’ve always loved Ethan Joella’s way of storytelling. He writes such emotional and heartwarming books. I will always recommend them to people and hope they experience the same comfort as I do after finishing each of his stories.

Ethan Joella really has a knack for portraying real life people in real life situations. This story follows Jack, who inherited his family restaurant in Rehoboth Beach. After many years, he wants to retire after receiving a generous offer to sell. However, the decision isn’t easy and there are many moving parts.

I appreciate reading novels about salt of the earth people and Jack was that. I rooted for him and agonized with him throughout. There are some surprises along the way that only amplified this quiet story. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Another job well done once again by Joella!

P.S. This story really made me want to visit Rehoboth Beach…it sounds like a dream!

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review!

Joella consistently writes characters that draw you in and makes you care for them immensely. This is one you can savor or read in one sitting. The northeast beach scene is a place to slowly stroll, which is the pace I took as I got to know the cast. I adored the excerpts from “That’s Rehoboth Beach: A Guidebook,” which added a layer to the story.

This was a great book which was character driven and emotional that makes you love the town and it’s people. You fall in love with his characters and sense of place like Jan Karon’s books do . This book will stay with you.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review the book

Emotionally driven and thought provoking with a close knit community surrounding Jack Schmidt and his lifetime of dedicating his time in his family owned restaurant. As he closes another chapter in his life in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a company offers to buy his business. With mixed feelings and memories surfacing from his past, he has second thoughts of the sale. Unsure of what his life will be without his work, he also worries about the employees who work for him and how it might impact their life. As he focuses on the importance of his decisions, he looks at the regrets of his life.
The story is written in the past and present with no denial of a perfect ending.
If you loved A Quiet Life, this one brings the emotions and real life depictions and how our decisions impact someone else's life. I love this author's style! Highly recommend!
Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Schmidt's Restaurant, has been in Jack's family for three generations, For Jack, it's like a second family. And, it's been his whole life. However, he and the restaurant are now at a critical juncture. Just when Jack is ready to sell the restaurant and retire, his world is upended by an ex-girlfriend, a new love interest, and startling news from his past. The book’s character development is exceptional, making the people feel authentic, with genuine lives and real challenges. It’s a touching story about family, both biological and chosen, friendship, life, death, second chances, and the significance of meaningful connections. I found it thoroughly enjoyable!

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for an advanced copy.

THE SAME BRIGHT STARS was a beautiful heartfelt story, I liked the pacing, characters and that it was set in a small town. I won't forget this book anytime soon. I'll be checking out the author's previous titles.


Many thanks to NetGalley and Scriber for my gifted copy!!

In a Nutshell: If you know Ethan Joella’s writing, you know what to expect from this. A character-oriented literary fiction with multiple emotional hues. Focusses on the interplay of relationships across family, friends, and employees. Well-written plot, balanced emotions, excellent character sketches. Recommended!

Plot Preview:
Fifty-two-year-old Jack Schmidt has been taking care of the family restaurant since his college years. And now he is tired. He has always put the restaurant first in his life, even at the cost of relationships and friendships. With no family around, he wonders if he should have done things differently.
When the DelDine corporation approaches Jack with a takeover offer, his initial reluctance slowly gives way to consideration. But what is Jack without Schmidt’s? Can he trust a corporation to take care of his family’s legacy and his staff the way he did?
The story comes to us from Jack’s third person perspective over two timelines.

Bookish Yays:
🌞 Jack is a deserving protagonist. His care and concern for his employees is as evident as his confusion over his decision and his regret at some past incidents. Despite this, Jack is carved realistically, with flaws also a part of his character development.
🌞 The other characters, whether major or minor, are also layered. Some of them are typical while other are more unusual, but most make an impact.
🌞 It might seem like Jack has reached the point of a midlife crisis, when people begin pondering the what ifs and if onlys. But the story is much more than that. I like how the character-focussed narrative still paid attention to the plot.
🌞 The two timelines work together in harmony, effectively depicting how the actions of the past can have repercussions on the present. For a change, I liked the contemporary timeline more than the past one, as it had much more to offer.
🌞 The third-person writing works excellently in this novel. It's surprising to see how much we understand the characters even though we get only Jack's third-person view of their behaviour.
🌞 The challenge of running a family/independent business in today's world where commercialisation and standardisation are the norm comes out well.
🌞 The setting of Rehoboth Beach is perfect for this story. There are interludes after every few chapters from “Rehoboth Beach: A Guidebook’, which give us a perspective on the location. I kept thinking about how well the author seemed to have captured the pulse of Rehoboth Beach. Turns out, he stays there with his family! No wonder the writing feels so personal and genuine!
🌞 As a character-oriented literary fiction, the pacing is obviously on the slower side, but it doesn’t slacken anytime.
🌞 This is a gentle, melancholic kind of read that is mostly introspective but offers moments of light-heartedness. Rarely do stories with male protagonists have such realistic exploration of diverse emotions. More importantly, few male writers can capture feelings so well. I love the overall emotional tone of this story.
🌞 The ending is perfect. I love how the author doesn’t forcibly try to fit in shiny rainbows into every characters’ lives. The ending is just as the plot deserves: hopeful.

Bookish Mixed Bags:
🌤️ There are many characters with secrets. A couple of them fell flat and forced to me, but the rest were written well and fit into the narrative neatly.
🌤️ The cover might lead to some erroneous expectations, so don’t be confused by it. This is not a beach read, though those chairs have significance in the later part of the story. The book has clearly been marked as literary fiction, and that is exactly what it is. Also, there are several dark themes in the book. Though these are written without going overly maudlin, they still mean that the book works more as a contemplative read than as an entertaining palate cleanser.

All in all, this is a mood read and if picked up at the right time, it will satisfy the reader with its mellow observation of humans and their strengths and shortcomings.

This is my second book by Ethan Joella, the first being ‘A Quiet Life’, which was similar in mood but had three characters’ perspectives. While I liked that book as well, ‘The Same Bright Stars’ worked out even better in theme as well as writing. Ethan Joella teaches English and Psychology at the University of Delaware, and he seems to use both subjects optimally while crafting his stories. This is definitely an author I’d love to read more from.

Recommended to literary fiction readers and those who enjoy slow-burn character-oriented writing in a small-town setting.

4.25 stars.

My thanks to Scribner for providing the DRC of “The Same Bright Stars” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

I just finished this book and the best way I can describe it is like a long, leisurely walk, in a meandering path.

The end wasn't ever the goal, but once you got there you felt satisfied.

That probably doesn't make sense to you, but it's exactly how I feel about this book.

I like that it told a simple story, about a simple man, who had a remarkable year (or there abouts) and his life changed. For the better.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I was thrilled when I started reading this book and learned that it was based in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. That is the very area that I grew up going to on our annual family vacation (to the Rehoboth/Dewey beach area). It was so cool to see that area represented in a book and it made this entire book very nostalgic for me. I especially loved the blurbs in between chapters that were from Rehoboth Beach visitor's/travels guides, etc. I don't actually know if those excerpts were just written by the author as part of the book or if they were true excerpts from an actual visitor's guide - but either way, I liked them.

The story itself was sort of a slower-paced, quiet story - but one with big feelings and big topics tackled. I really found the main character, Jack Schmidt, to be endearing. He's a "salt of the earth" kind of guy whom I found to be very real, which is something I love in my book characters.

While I absolutely enjoyed the experience of reading this book and I really liked the overall plot, my only critique is that the book tried to tackle several heavy topics and went down a bunch of wormholes, but because so many topics were packed into a short book, those wormholes were kind of shallow, if you know what I mean. While I know that life is crazy and so many of us live through all kinds of pain and trauma, it just felt like a LOT to pack into one short book that was mainly about saving the family restaurant that had become the fixture of a beach town. ***THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS. I WILL NOT INCLUDE ANY ADDITIONAL SPOILERS IN THE PARAGRAPHS FOLLOWING THIS ONE. Spoilers start here: To better explain the myriad of things this book tried to weave into the story, here is a partial list: caring for a parent with dementia, the deaths of no less than 5 different parents in the book, cancer, suicide, family revelations, abortion, lost young love, a violent, near-death assault, addiction, multiple betrayals, and theft. And most of these things were small parts of the book that played into the character's lives, but not really part of the big plot. It just felt that the author was maybe trying to pack too much into one story and wasn't able to explore any of those smaller plotlines with any depth. And those things are huge, life-changing things, so I would have loved to have some of them a explored a little more. There was also the random inclusion of a homeless woman in two short scenes, and I didn't really understand the purpose of including her. I thought that story line was going to go somewhere, but it never did. SPOILER END.

Anyway, despite the fact that I think the author tried to pack too much into one story and left a lot of storylines lacking depth, I still found it to be a bingeable read that I didn't want to put down. I loved the short, quick chapters and several (though not all) of the characters.

I would recommend this book to fans of contemporary fiction, and if you like Ethan Joella's other work, I think you'll like this one just the same.

Ethan Joella never fails to craft a beautiful and moving story. THE SAME BRIGHT STARS is a touching tale of a family’s love and loss. Jack Schmidt must make a difficult decision that will affect many other people. His character is deeply compassionate and yet tender. This story is quiet one, ushering the reader through seemingly ordinary, everyday moments. But all of our days count, and our lives can change with one phone call, from one minute to the next. I love books like this, ones that cause me to think about the impact of the decisions of our lives and how we must focus on what is most important in this short life.

I love Ethan Joella. His books have these incredibly heartwarming characters who make you feel ALL the feels, and this book is no exception.

From the moment I met Jack Schmidt on the page, I was right there alongside him. Jack is the owner of a beachfront Delaware restaurant that’s been in his family for several generations. He feels the toll that owning a restaurant has taken on him and he is torn between continuing on with his family’s legacy or selling out to a big company that’s been buying out all the local eating establishments.

In addition to Jack’s big decision on the restaurant, his ex-fiancée comes back to town and brings up complicated emotions for him, and shares a HUGE secret about his past that changes Jack’s life completely. He is dealing with a lot and yet he has such a big heart and cares about his friends, his employees, his customers. Jack is loyal and generous and kind and he feels like someone you could be friends with in real life.

Beyond the restaurant situation, this book is layered in so many ways. There’s heartbreak and grief and uncertainty about the future and all of it was so quietly engrossing, in only the way that Ethan Joella can write it. I can’t shout out enough praises for this book!

Three generations of Schmidts have run their family’s beachfront restaurant, and Jack has been at the helm since his father's death. He puts the demands of the restaurant above all else, with a string of failed relationships, no hobbies, and no days off as proof of his commitment to the place. He can’t remember the last time he sat on the beach or enjoyed a moment to himself.

Meanwhile, the DelDine group has been snapping up beloved eateries along this stretch of coast, and it is pursuing Jack with a very generous offer to take Schmidt’s off his hands. Jack craves companionship and maybe even a family. He wonders whether closing the door on the restaurant might open a window for him—but who would he be without Schmidt’s, and can he trust DelDine’s claims that it will continue to employ his staff and honor his family’s legacy?

I really felt this novel was atmospheric with such vivid details of the town of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. I liked that this wasn't the typical beach that you often see in Summer reads. I had the pleasure of visiting the area for a quick day trip in 2019. This story made me really want to go back and spend more time here.

As always, Joella creates a wonderful cast of characters. This time the story was only told through Jack's point of view. I really felt such empathy for him all the way through and was rooting for his happy ending. He just seemed to have so much sadness in his life. I also enjoyed all of the side characters who enhanced the story. I was quite surprised by the twist that was revealed, I did not see that coming at all, and was so anxious to see where that part of the story would lead. And again, not where I thought it would, but I ended up loving that part in it's own way too.

I was so happy to receive this book early from @netgalley and @scribner as it was one of my most anticipated reads of the Summer. I look forward to reading whatever @joellawriting writes in the future, his books are always like a big, warm hug. Plus Joella is truly one of the nicest guys you will ever come across on the internet. He's always so active and engaged with his readers. This book was a delight from start to finish and I highly recommend picking it up when it releases on July 2, 2024!

Thanks to Scribner for the copy of this book.

I loved A QUIET LIFE and Ethan Joella is just honestly the sweetest author. THE SAME BRIGHT STARS is a slower-paced family drama in the beach town of Rehoboth, Delaware. This one was a little *too* slow paced for me, But I always appreciate Joella’s writing and the amazing family stories that he curates. This is a perfect heartwarming, summer read! Easy to read in one day at the beach.

Another beautiful, quietly understated book by Ethan Joella.

This was a mix of plot and character driven, and I loved how the story wove in and out of these characters’ lives. As someone who lives in a beach town that gets slow in the off-season and busy in the summer, it was fun seeing that in this story, and I could see a lot of similarities.

Jack was a really likable MC, and he felt relatable and like a real person; he was flawed, kind, trying his best, and tried to see the good in others. His growth over the course of the book was wonderful to see, and even though things don’t tie up perfectly, I was left feeling ok with some of those unknowns. The character-driven aspect made it so I wasn’t quite sure where the story was going, but I was just happy to be along for the ride.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the advance copy.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Scribner, and Ethan Joella for allowing me to review this book. Ethan Joella writes beautiful and inspirational novels and this one is no exception. I loved it so much. It’s hopeful, beautiful, and inspirational. I love how this is a very character driven novel but the setting is described in such a way that I feel it’s also a character in the book. I really need to visit this beach town after reading this book. I hope it is turned into a movie filmed in the very locations described in the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves second chances and feel good small town emotional beach reads. This would be a great summer read! Thank you again for allowing me to review this exceptional novel.

4.5 ~ Ethan Joella is an author that I have thoroughly enjoyed and his latest, The Same Bright Stars is no exception. Here we meet Jack, a 52 year old restaurant owner in the Delaware touristy beach town of Rehoboth Beach. Ever since he took over the family restaurant after his father’s death, it has been his entire life. He has passed on chances with love and much of life, all in the name of keeping the restaurant running. He now has a tempting offer from a corporate backed restaurant group that has been buying up restaurants along the coast. He could sell and retire. This quiet, lovely character driven novel explores Jack’s past, his family, his employees, his community, and his friends and the relationships he has with all of them. He is definitely tempted as he examines his life and quite frankly, he wants more. He realizes everything he has given up and wonders what more is out there. While going through the motions of his day to day grind and exploring his options, big revelations from his past are brought to light.
I especially liked the excerpts from “That’s Rehoboth Beach: A Guidebook” as we meander through the seasons. Often times a setting is fictional, or when it is a real place, it is glossed over. In this case, Joella does an exemplary job of bringing Rehoboth Beach to life and it is a character itself that he has made a very conscience decision to highlight. You can feel the sticky candy on your fingers, smell the salt in the air, sense the traffic creeping into town on a Saturday, and hear the children shrieking at the boardwalk arcade. I have been to Rehoboth and it is indeed magical. The sense of joy that Joella awards this idealistic little beach town is a love letter in itself.
Thank you to NetGalley And Scribner for an advance e-copy in exchange for my review. The Same Bright Stars will be available on 7/2/24.