The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin was a quick grab for me due to my love for her last release. Unfortunately an hour into reading I knew I was going to have a bit of a problem. I do always appreciate the warning of potential triggers that will occur in the book, that was a plus. The storyline was there being mostly about three of the friends at crossroads in their life and make a pact to stay together and help one another. It just fell flat for me, it wasn’t enough to create the great feel I had in her previous novel Meant to Be. I will definitely be looking forward to see what else comes next from this talented author. I’m sure there’s a great target audience for The Summer Pact.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballentine for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

Underwhelming and forgettable. I made no connections with any of the characters (they're discontented elder millennials! Like me! This should've been a slam dunk.) The pop-culture references to the Eras tour and even Travis Kelce were odd and took me out of the story. And, nothing really happens? Which is wild considering that the characters are globetrotting Eat Pray Love style.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

A beautiful and moving story of friendship & finding yourself.

This one started out so strong & I was instantly hooked. Filled with emotion and [trigger warning] the death of a best friend by suicide, this book captures you from the start.

I found the middle to be a little slow, and the way some things wrapped up at the end seemed a little off, but overall a powerful story. Definitely a great one to check out!

This was a super sweet story about love, friendship and grief. It was done very well through the incredibly heavy topics the book talked about.

Review: The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin 3

In the wake of tragedy, a group of friends make a pact that will cause them to reunite a decade later and embark upon a life-changing adventure together.

I have been reading Emily Giffin for over a decade and find her books usually strike a balance between easy to read while also dealing with a tragedy. The Summer Pact fell short for me, while it was super to read (short chapters and simple dialog) it lacked something that made it memorable. Some of the storylines felt a bit rushed and added in to check the box. Overall, I would skip this one and look into her backlist if you haven't read some of her older books.

I've always been a huge fan of Emily Griffin and this book does not disappoint. After facing tragedy in their college years a group of friends have made a pact to always be there for each other and when one of them faces a relationship crisis, the group is called together to take the college trip that they never got to do. Each of them is facing their own crises and are learning how to navigate those while supporting each other. A great read about the power of friendship.

I was waiting all summer to read Emily Giffin's latest summer read, The Summer Pact. I read my first Emily Giffin novel in 2005 and am always looking forward to the next one.

The Summer Pact, is a story of 4 friends who meet at the very beginning of their college journey and instantly become inseparable. Right before they graduate college, tragedy strikes and affects each of them differently as their start their next chapter of their lives as adults. Several years after graduation, they are still best friends and reunite after another unfortunate event happens.

This story is told from 3 different points of view. I found the different POV so similar, I often had trouble remembering whose view I was currently reading. This was a struggle for me. Overall, I enjoyed the story and appreciated some of the heavy topics. However, I feel the story was a little far fetched by having so many different "heavy topics" going on at the same time. I wish the author could have maybe developed the chargers a little more and kept the story around 1 or 2 of these scenarios, instead of jumping around from one to the next.

This was a sold 3 star read and kept my attention.

This is the tale of friendship, love, and loss. It had so much potential, and I did enjoy it but I could have seen it being so much more! It felt like there were too many instances of trying to be relevant that it became cumbersome and irrelevant. Grateful to NetGalley for the opportunity to read.

In Emily Giffin's latest book, four freshmen arrive at college from completely different worlds: Lainey, a California party girl with a flair for drama; Tyson, a brilliant scholar and aspiring lawyer from Washington, D.C.; Summer, an ambitious, recruited athlete from the Midwest; and Hannah, a mild-mannered southerner who is content to quietly fill in the circle of big personalities. These four quickly become friends until a tragedy pushed them apart. Shocked and heartbroken, they make a pact, promising to always be there for one another, no matter how separated they may become.

Ten years later, Hannah is anticipating what should be one of the happiest moments of her life when everything is suddenly turned upside down. Calling on her closest friends, it soon becomes clear that they are all facing their own crossroads. True to their promise, they agree to take a time out from lives headed in wrong directions and embark on a shared journey of self-discovery, forgiveness, and acceptance. This is a great story of friendship and the bonds that bind us together.

Emily Giffin has some really great stories and some stories that don't really speak to me. This falls into the latter. The idea of the book has been done plenty- a group of friends loses a member of their group through suicide and they form some sort of pact to stay friends and support each other. I've seen it recently in The Celebrants. That automatically makes this book less interesting to me but how it's executed is just too simplistic and neat. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book was a lot of emotions. It was a heavy subject/event that tied these friends together for years. When they need each other they just show up. They must be fully present. So history doesn’t repeat itself. But they each have secrets about their final months with their long lost friend that haunts each of them.

After a tragic loss, three friends form a pact to always be there for each other in their hardest times. A simple concept that many in life have promised but these friends follow true. I definitely did not see the catalyst of this pact coming - my jaw literally dropped open when I read it. It threw me off but the rest of the book tried to act like a salve and heal me over. I enjoyed reading about a solid always-there-for-you friendship, because that seems so rare. Capri was where the majority of the book was set and I have always wanted to go to Italy and always enjoy reading books set there. The relationship changes in this book were very predictable and just felt kind of plain. Overall this was a quick read, engaging enough that I kept coming back to it in my spare time, had some shock value, and sweet parts. If you enjoy E.H. books then read this one but otherwise I’m a bit mixed on how well I liked it.

I loved The Summer Pact. It was not exactly what I expected, but it was a super story of friendship, healing, and finding love after tragedy, supported by a beautiful Italian backdrop. Definitely recommend!

Emily Giffen is a good storyteller. She reminded me of how much I love meeting with girlfriends of 30 years - though now we meet online since we live in different parts of the world.

Three very different women track their journey and their friendship over 10 years, through grief, celebration, and surprising revelations that we learn about each other as life unfolds. You'll love this for a beach read, on the commute, or when you need to be reminded that old friends can remain Friends of the heart.

The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin was a struggle for me to read and even finish. I put this book down many times. Although I understand what Giffin was trying to do with this book, it was not executed well, a far cry from her previous work. Even with the TW, suicide is not something I look for in books, especially when it seems to be taken so… lightly?

I understand it’s difficult to write LGBTQ and POC characters, but I also felt that these characters didn’t have much depth, nor did they act like best friends. The lesbian narrative felt surface level and rushed. The suicide narrative also felt rushed and glazed over. Summer’s story wasn’t given what it deserved. It was hard for me to connect or relate to any of the characters because of this.

I think we spend about 25% of the story in Italy. The Summer Pact tried so hard to tackle too many social issues at once. I experience a beautifully written novel about deep friendships and life’s hardships, but I feel like I got a lazy version of what this book was supposed to be. It does have potential to be that book, it just wasn’t for me.

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review

This one was hard for me to get into, but I overall enjoyed this nice beach read! I will be including this in my beach/summer suggestions to friends for a quick and fun read.

College friends after a tragedy form a pact that if they ever need each other, they will drop everything and come running. This is a summer not to be forgotten ten years later. A summer of self discovery and growth. Told in different POV of the three main characters. Loved how the characters matured through the years. I did listen to the audio version of this book.

A great summer read about people bonded by friendship and tragedy, committed to each other despite how they have grown or changed. Friendship can make a family, especially when real family fails us. Love the friends and settings this story is built around. Love that Hannah finds her true self.

This book explored the themes of friendship love and loss. It was delivered in a way only Emily Giffin can deliver.

Thank you to the author and publisher for allowing me to read this book early!

I wanted to love this book so much, but it fell so flat and just did not mark off a good summer book. I loved the cover of it and was hoping for a fun summer read. This book was very heavy and did not focus on what the story was originally was set for. I feel as though the characters were a little boring and shallow. Some parts felt like they were just thrown into the story just to have words on the page. It felt very rushed and not well put together. I wanted to love this book, but I am sorry it was not a summer book to remember or worth reading again.