What a pleasant surprise this book was! A friend group spends three weekends on Fire Island for a messy summer. Maggie Monroe followed her dreams to LA, but finds herself back in New York, unsure of what life has in store for her next. Being back in the friend group means being reunited with her ex-boyfriend.

I loved the friendship dynamics and found this book to be an easy escape. I enjoyed the multiple POVs and watching the chaos unfold. This was on track to definitely be a four-star read for me, but it lost a little magic towards the end.

I’m excited to read Chalsen’s next book, and will need to check out her debut as well!

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

Last summer, I ADORED Becky Chalsen’s KISMET, a family drama set during a wedding weekend on Fire Island.

When I heard she was back with another Fire Island novel, this time following a close knit friend group as they come together for three unforgettable weekends, I was STOKED.

SERENDIPITY begins with Maggie moving back to New York after spending years working in the movie business in Los Angeles. She’s nervous to fall back into step with her high school friends, largely because most of them have a problem with the way she abruptly ditched them all to follow her Hollywood dreams. What they don’t know is that she left California for a tough reason, which only exacerbates the pain and awkwardness of reconnecting with old friends, especially as she learns her ex-best friend Liz is getting married and her ex-boyfriend Mac has a new girlfriend. When she accepts their invitation to stay in a share house for three weekends on Fire Island, they navigate their pasts catching back up with them.

I largely liked this book, although I don’t think it could top KISMET for me (what can I say, I love a summer wedding). The friends in a share house angle reminded me SO much of Summer House (don’t worry, this group is far less sociopathic than my Hamptons pals). It has great summer vibes and I loved the focus on the tumultuous career, romantic, and friendship changes we all go through in our 20s. I feel like I saw a lot of myself and my own friends in these characters.

The POV changes a lot, and while I liked the opportunity to get to know some of the novel’s secondary characters a bit more through these sections, it did take me out of the narrative. I also think this made it hard to dive deep on some of the emotional issues in the narrative. I found Liz’s character arc to be the most fascinating and I wanted a little bit more from her POV!

SERENDIPITY is out on June 4! Thank you @duttonbooks for my copy — this one truly made me want to book a share house with a bunch of friends, so if you’re my IRL friend, have your people call my people so we can make it happen.

"Serendipity" by Becky Chalsen is a heartwarming story of friendship and love that unfolds over three weekends. The story follows Maggie and Liz, high school besties who drifted apart when Maggie left and chased her dreams. Now, with Maggie back in town after a job loss, she has to face her old friends, including the guy whose heart she broke. Can Maggie repair the friendships and relationships she left in shambles during their Fire Island getaway, or is it too late? This book is a nostalgic and entertaining read, perfect for anyone who loves stories about friendship, love, and the messy journey to adulthood.

Thank you Becky Chalsen, NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the ebook arc. All opinions expressed are my own.

Three weekends and a house share in Fire Island with her friends is all Maggie hopes she needs to get her life back on track. After her screenwriting career in LA didn’t quite go as planned, Maggie is back in New Yorks and reuniting with her old friends, including her ex for a house share. These weekends are filled with a mix of nostalgia and having to address drama from their past.
This beautiful story of love and friendship captivated me from the very first pages and kept me invested all the way through. I loved the unique structure of the story - told over one weekend a month when the friends had the time share. While the majority of the book focuses on Maggie and Liz, we also get chapters from the point of view of the other friends, so we really get to see all perspectives and understand the dynamics of the group from all levels. The Fire Island setting makes this the perfect summer/vacation read. This is truly a magical book.
Thank you to Dutton Books and NetGalley for the advance copy.

This was a cute book, I think I was expecting a little romance but I enjoyed the more friendship aspect of the story. It was a quick read and you definitely get invested in the characters - especially Maggie, I wanted to know why she left LA, what was the big secret? And I did enjoy that there were little chapters that delved a little deeper into each of the secondary characters as well. Definitely a cute read!

No sophomore slump for Becky Chalsen - I adored her second book set on Fire Island and this story of friendship and romance. I loved all the nods to Long Island - including some I even recognized from my own childhood there!

CUTEEEE summer beach read about a group of friends who come together for the first time in 7 years. There’s the perfect dash of romance between high school sweethearts and a gorgeous east coast beach town setting.

Beautiful story about second chances in life and in romance.

A heartfelt, fun, summer romance about starting over, reconnecting with old friends and second chance love. Perfect for fans of Emily Henry's Happy Places, this new book from Becky Chalsen is set on Fire Island, NY over 3 summer weekends that sees old friends reunited when one returns home from their screen writing career in LA and two others getting ready for their wedding. This was a sweet, feel-good, light-hearted read and also excellent on audio narrated by my fav, Brittany Pressley. Many thanks to NetGalley and Berkley romance for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

Now that summer is officially here, you’re probably looking for a good beach read, am I right? May I suggest Becky Chalsen’s latest rom-com, Serendipity? I absolutely adored her debut from last summer, Kismet, so requesting her sophomore release was a no-brainer for me. I’m happy to report that I enjoyed Serendipity just as much—maybe even more.

I absolutely love reading about friendship, and Becky truly delivers with a storyline involving a group of friends from high school, meeting up at their favorite spot on Fire Island as they approach their mid-twenties. A few of the relationships are a bit strained, so you just know that there’s going to be some juicy drama! They’re all dealing with their own life issues, problems, and struggles, which really took me back to that phase of my life. The age where you’re supposed to become a real adult—a solid career, getting married, finding a starter home, etc. You know, when you should finally settle down. Ha! Even though I’m about 20 years older than this crowd, I was still able to connect to their experiences. Becky did a fantastic job of creating an interesting group of relatable and realistic characters.

READ THIS IF YOU ENJOY:

- Friendship fiction
- Early adulthood
- East coast beach town setting
- High school sweethearts
- Reflections on loss, grief, and healing
- Wedding season
- Family drama
- Light romance
- Multiple perspectives
- Starting over and second chances

Overall, this is truly the perfect summer read. It’s fun, light, and breezy, yet has a good dose of serious topics throughout that will hold your attention from start to finish. 4/5 stars for Serendipity! It’s out now!

This book takes place over a summer of 3 weekends on Fire Island and it follows 8 friends 7 years after their high school graduation. It’s not a reunion, though, since 7 of the friends all live in NYC, but it is in the sense that it’s their first time back on Fire Island and they’re staying in the same house they stayed in during the weekend after prom. Cam and Mac are twins, Liz is engaged to Cam, Maggie was Liz’s best friend and Mac’s girlfriend until she moved away to LA for film school. The other four friends are just side characters who help move the story along or are just in the background. The main bulk of the story follows the secrets Cam & Liz are keeping from each other, Liz’s anger towards Maggie, and Maggie’s & Mac’s pining for each other.
I know I’m in my mid-forties, but I find I can still sometimes connect with characters in their mid-twenties. That wasn’t the case with these characters. Honestly, I don’t think I would have connected with them even when I was in my mid-twenties. I really didn’t find any of the main characters to be likable; I didn’t like all of the secret keeping that when on by all of them. I wish we had been given more depth into the lives of the side characters instead of just the mere glimpses.
I think a big part of why I didn’t like this was the writing style. I haven’t read the author’s first book so I have nothing to which I can compare this, but the writing style is very choppy. While there are poems that Maggie writes interspersed throughout the narrative, parts of the narrative have a very lyrical vibe to them, whereas others are just comprised of short sentences making it read very clunky.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for an advanced copy of this. Serendipity hit the shelves on June 4th.

This fun summery novel is about a group of high school friends, who, 7 years after graduation, take a summer share in a house on Fire Island. It’s told primarily from the two perspectives of Liz, who is newly engaged but still grieving the death of her mom, and Maggie, who is just back from LA after sort of ghosting the rest of the group including former best friend Liz, and smarting from her film career failure. There are also occasional chapters from other members of the group.

I liked Becky Chalsen’s first book Kismet, but I enjoyed this one even more. I’m almost twice the age of the main characters in this book, and I didn’t have a cohesive long lasting co-ed high school friend group like the one in this book, but yet I still really enjoyed spending time with these characters. And of course the summer setting makes this a great one to read by the beach or pool!

In some ways, this book really made me think of the early books of authors like Emily Giffin and Jennifer Weiner when we called such books “chick lit” (and in a positive way.). That is, it is light in tone, but less focused on romance than most of today’s lighter books which are more commonly described as romance or rom com. There is a little bit of romance in the book, but really it’s more about Liz and Maggie figuring out who they are and what they want, and if they can rekindle their past friendship. Indeed, it’s less second chance romance about Maggie’s high school boyfriend Mac and more “second chance friendship” if that’s a thing, and I loved that. I’d also recommend this to fans of authors like Elyssa Friedland and Jane L Rosen (who has also set her last two books on Fire Island!)

Serendipity by Becky Chalsen was such a fun, beachy read!
I was hooked from the start to the finish. And left me with the biggest smile on my face. Becky writes her characters and plot so realistically. It’s refreshing. I was really impressed with Becky Chalsen's writing and style. I was captivated.
This is a great story about self-growth, family, friendship, growing up, changing and love.
A wonderful journey with these characters.

Thank You NetGalley and Dutton for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I absolutely adored this one. I read it in less than 24 hours and I loved it so much. I loved the way that Maggie really changed and so did the whole crew, This book made me cry a few times. I would have liked to see Cam going to therapy but its okay. I really adored this and loved that we got a Sharp family cameo!!

I enjoyed Becky’s debut Kismet, but I absolutely loved Serendipity! This will be a perfect summer read or the book to pick up when you want to be transported to the beach.

I liked having a number of characters perspectives throughout the book with chapters dedicated solely to them. I listened to the audio version and Brittany Presley did an excellent job giving each character their own voice. Maggie and Liz are the main focus throughout the book and they both have their own struggles to overcome and solid growth during the story. They’ve also been estranged since college and I it was great to watch them have difficult conversations with each other about why they needed to go their separate ways.

As someone who lives on Long Island, I loved all of the mentions of places I know and have been to!

Three weekends with old friends, (and old wounds,) could truly change their lives forever… Liz and Maggie have a few things to sort out since Maggie left abruptly, and a rental property called Serendipity is just the place to start.

Friends are having a summer getaway, sunny days on a beautiful beach, and eventual found family; a perfect read to kick off the summer! The way this story is written, with multiple POVs shows the characters and gives the story plenty of depth. Fans of Emily Henry are going to enjoy this story, and seeing that it is available on June 4th, this should be added to your TBR now!

Read if you like:
🏫 High School Reunions
👯‍♀️ Friendship
🏖️ Summer Romances
🥈 Second Chances
💕 Friends to Lovers

Maggie left her high school friends behind six years ago to follow her dreams in California. Now, she comes back to New York defeated only to have to confront everything she left behind, including her former best friend and the man whose heart she broke on her way out of town.

The setting of Fire Island works so well in this story! It's beachy and filled with vacation vibes.

I really liked all of the characters in this book. Most of the story follows Maggie and Liz, but each side character gets a turn to shine with their own chapter which I loved!

Thank you to the publisher for my gifted ARC in exchange for my feedback.

Serendipity by Becky Chalsen is a beautiful novel of healing and second chances.

Maggie Monroe is back in New York after several years in LA. She feels like a failure because of the crash and burn of her career. Maggie is also hoping to heal her friendship with her childhood best friend, Liz. After Maggie left for LA, she slowly lost touch with Liz and their other besties, the Peters’ brothers. Cam Peters and Liz are newly engaged but things are not quite right with them. And Maggie is dismayed to discover her former friend and boyfriend Mac Peters is intent on ignoring her. Will three weekends over the summer give Maggie the opportunity to fix their friendships?

Maggie is a talented young woman but she has been badly burned by her former boss. Although uncertainties over career linger, she is grateful for the opportunities she has to repair her mistakes with her friends. But for every step forward Maggie makes with Liz and Mac, she ends up taking a couple of steps backward. Maggie wants to make amends for how she left things with them years earlier, but will they accept her back into their group of friends?

Fire Island is a special place for Maggie and her friends. As teenagers, many of their happiest memories were made there. The house they are renting for one weekend each month over the summer also holds a warm place in everyone’s hearts. But will the magic of the past help or hinder Maggie’s efforts with Liz and Mac?

Serendipity is a compelling novel with a great storyline and setting. Maggie and her friends are vibrant, three-dimensional characters whose flaws and strengths are relatable. They each grow and evolve over the course of the story as they confront the past and their individual issues in the present. The storyline is engaging with realistic problems to solve. Becky Chalsen brings this heartwarming novel to a satisfying conclusion readers are sure to enjoy.

i think if everyone just TALKED AND LISTENED, like it were group therapy, 85% of their problems would be solved.

third person? fine, i’m okay with that but there are way too many people in this book to be going back and forth. i’d settle in with one character and then oH oKay we’re switching to someone else. i could never fully connect with these characters as individuals.

maggie and liz have such an infuriating relationship. you’re telling me two people in their mid twenties can’t just TALK? i get that shit happened between them, but seriously? they couldn’t be adults for ten minutes?

i didn’t like robyn. she was self-absorbed. great entrepreneurial spirit, but EVERYTHING had to be about her. cam just sucks at communicating lol. his issues with liz would be solved if he just talked to her 😐. and mac just sucks at being alone, which is fine but man c’mon.

Three Weekends + Four Friends 
Thank you, Dutton Books, for the gifted copy of Serendipity by Becky Chaldean {partner}

Genre: Fiction
Format: 🎧📖
Pub Date: 6.4.2024
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆

“How much longer until all their calendars started to fill with weddings and showers, bachelorette weekends and plans? How much longer could they all find three weekends in one summer alone to commit to nothing but friendship?”

I wasn’t sure what I would find in the pages of Serendipity - I just knew I was drawn toward the title and the beautifully illustrated cover. What I found inside was a nostalgia-filled story that reminded me of the friendships I still carry in my heart even though we’ve all gone our separate ways. 

The setting of Fire Island provided the perfect setting and added an almost magical feel. Yes, the friends still went out drinking at night, but during the day, they became the sand castle-building kids of their youth. 

While I didn’t love the ending, I tried not to let that shadow my overall enjoyment of the story. I think a lot of people will enjoy the ending, but it just wasn’t for me. 

☀️The setting
🗣️ Multiple POV’s
🫶🏼 A love letter to friendship
👏🏼 Perfect summer reading
🤷🏽‍♀️ The ending was just okay

I recommend reading Serendipity if you’re looking for a light summer read to take to the pool, lake, or beach!