03 April 2022

That Summer - Book Review

That Summer by Jennifer Weiner
Publication date: May 11, 2021 
Pages: 429 pages
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars ☆☆☆☆☆
Sweet Spark: While not a fun beach read, as the title and cover may suggest, this book was compelling and the storyline was satisfying
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This was another read for my 12 Book Challenge (12 books recommended by 12 friends for this year). It was another one that I remember being pretty popular around its release last year, but since most of my reading is for reviews, I never got around to reading it 'just for fun.' But now I've been challenged, so I have to, see?

The first part of the story details a girl named Diana who spends a summer as a mother's helper with a friend of her mother on Cape Cod. The job sounds nice - she spends the day with the kids, then has her evenings off and begins frequenting the beach where the students on summer break from a college hang-out. She's only 15-years-old, and hoping for a first kiss. 

The story then moves on to a woman named Daisy. She's a mostly stay-at-home mom since marrying her older husband a year before she might have graduated from college. Her 15-year-old daughter is not the daughter that she or her husband expect. Daisy is pretty lonely, as her best friend who she met in childbirth classes passed away from cancer a few years earlier. Imagine how pleasantly surprised she is when a new friendship is struck up through a wrong email close to hers. 

The wrong email, unfortunately, is not as blindly lucky as it seems. The other woman wants to get to know Daisy and her daughter for another reason. As soon as I figured out the 'why' of what was going on, I couldn't set the book down - I wanted to find out how it all would end!

I loved this story, which brought about all the feels, and gave it 5 out of 5 stars. It was a story that was charming and inspiring in turns. The other reason I can recommend it as a favorite is that I liked the ending. There were a few different endings I would have appreciated also, but I do like the ending the author gave it.

1 comment:

Shanna said...

Oh I cannot wait to read this!!