Review of The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTELLER

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of That Summer comes another heartfelt and unputdownable novel of family, secrets, and the ties that bind.

When her twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter announces her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, Sarah Danhauser is shocked. But the wheels are in motion. Headstrong Ruby has already set a date (just three months away!) and spoken to her beloved safta, Sarah’s mother Veronica, about having the wedding at the family’s beach house in Cape Cod. Sarah might be worried, but Veronica is thrilled to be bringing the family together one last time before putting the big house on the market.

But the road to a wedding day usually comes with a few bumps. Ruby has always known exactly what she wants, but as the wedding date approaches, she finds herself grappling with the wounds left by the mother who walked out when she was a baby. Veronica ends up facing unexpected news, thanks to her meddling sister, and must revisit the choices she made long ago, when she was a bestselling novelist with a different life. Sarah’s twin brother, Sam, is recovering from a terrible loss, and confronting big questions about who he is—questions he hopes to resolve during his stay on the Cape. Sarah’s husband, Eli, who’s been inexplicably distant during the pandemic, confronts the consequences of a long ago lapse from his typical good-guy behavior. And Sarah, frustrated by her husband, concerned about her stepdaughter, and worn out by challenges of life during quarantine, faces the alluring reappearance of someone from her past and a life that could have been.

When the wedding day arrives, lovers are revealed as their true selves, misunderstandings take on a life of their own, and secrets come to light. There are confrontations and revelations that will touch each member of the extended family, ensuring that nothing will ever be the same.

From “the undisputed boss of the beach read” (The New York Times), The Summer Place is a testament to family in all its messy glory; a story about what we sacrifice and how we forgive. Enthralling, witty, big-hearted, and sharply observed, this is Jennifer Weiner’s love letter to the Outer Cape and the power of home, the way our lives are enriched by the people we call family, and the endless ways love can surprise us.

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**My thoughts**

I am typically a fan of Jennifer Weiner's from the very beginning days [Good in Bed]. I admit this one took me a little longer to get into than most of hers. It felt a little flat and there are so many characters to keep track of.

That being said, each character has a very rich, intricate history. You have to understand the histories to understand the present. And oh, what a present it is. All of these stories are strongly intertwined, only the players do not yet know it. It's when the secrets start being revealed that things start to get more interesting. I felt like I was ready for an epic family tale that was the basis for one of those 1980s nighttime soaps like Dallas or Falcon Crest. 

What's interesting is how the story is also the product of the pandemic, so it does echo the flat strange lives we've all been living.

I also enjoyed the house being its own character.

Resolutions and endings as secrets were revealed seemed a little rushed and too neatly tied up with a bow. But I absolutely sobbed at the ending, feeling what the author has been going through in her own life [from what I have read online]. I think the ending of the novel finally woke up a bit because she was able to pour her feelings into the characters. And I felt it.

So while it isn't my favorite, I didn't feel like I had wasted my time with it. It kept me contentedly occupied on a rainy spring day. I'll keep reading her work.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me a requested review copy via Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.