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3.34 AVERAGE
3.34 AVERAGE
A long hot summer of suburban sex, simmering regret & yearnings for youth. That can be fun—if you’re Tennessee Williams. But here we’re in 30-something, frustrated intellectuals, teetering marriage territory. Dad is a stunted real estate agent tempted by a doomed young beauty. Mom is a blocked writer who picks up a freewheeling boy toy. Their bed-hopping leads to some amusing adults-gone-wild, summer flings. But gets silly when it tries to swim in the deep end. The Stones said it best: What a drag it is getting old.
Summerlong by Dean Bakopoulos
This book starts out with a married couple, two kids and they are nearing 40 and some changes are coming to each of them.
One night he gets up and walks out to find a woman lying in the grass and ends up waking up next to her in the morning. She has taken a run she knows he's home in the basement watching TV, he'd be there for the kids if they should waken.
She ends up having a few beers with a younger man. Iowa is where they live. Don works at a real estate agency. The cops find them both and deliver them home along with a foreclosure notice and their kids with a cop on the lawn wrapped in blankets.
Neither of them explain where they had been and doing-it's just a fantasy, now back to real life. Claire is an author but only has one book under her belt.
We learn of their other relationships and what is going through their minds...
Stories go back in time before they met, during their dating years and up to date present time spent with others.
Lives of all involved intertwine and loved hearing of the northern woods vacation...but will they have a chance at forever love?
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).
This book starts out with a married couple, two kids and they are nearing 40 and some changes are coming to each of them.
One night he gets up and walks out to find a woman lying in the grass and ends up waking up next to her in the morning. She has taken a run she knows he's home in the basement watching TV, he'd be there for the kids if they should waken.
She ends up having a few beers with a younger man. Iowa is where they live. Don works at a real estate agency. The cops find them both and deliver them home along with a foreclosure notice and their kids with a cop on the lawn wrapped in blankets.
Neither of them explain where they had been and doing-it's just a fantasy, now back to real life. Claire is an author but only has one book under her belt.
We learn of their other relationships and what is going through their minds...
Stories go back in time before they met, during their dating years and up to date present time spent with others.
Lives of all involved intertwine and loved hearing of the northern woods vacation...but will they have a chance at forever love?
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).
I follow Dean Bakopoulos on social and find him amusing. He is generationally very relatable to me. There was too much pizza and beer in this novel. That's all, no more comments.
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug use, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Dementia, Suicide attempt, Alcohol
This is some weird mix between The Corrections, This is Where I Leave You, and Middlesex. It’s like a midlife crisis rolled up in a book.
The fact that this narrative reminds of something I've read in the past, and really enjoyed, yet cannot remember is driving me crazy; nevertheless, this was a great read! I was already sold, based on the marketing description, and I’m so thankful that it did not disappoint. Here’s a passage that I just have to share; Claire, one of the main characters, is at the community swimming pool with her kids:
"Claire focuses on the many middle-aged women, mostly mothers, around her, also wearing bikinis, but none of them, as beautiful as some of them were, suggested that kind of pending eruption she sees in the half-naked young people around her. No, Claire and her almost-forty contemporaries stand about suggesting the virtues of endurance. They had made it to middle age with a remnant of hotness, and despite the attendant sagging and indignities of aging, they managed to transcend the reality that a tattoo above the ass or behind the shoulder had been a bad idea. Yes, many of the women, Claire included, have approached forty with a verve and vigor, had Pilated and power-walked themselves into a kind of level of fitness that they had not seen since sixteen, and when they went to the pool, the self-loathing they’d been taught to feel as teenagers had been replaced by a sexy confidence."
Isn't this great? I can't even do it justice. I feel like the author has imbued this entire novel with a sarcastic, yet awfully true, and humorous portrayal of life in the ‘burbs; these characters long for something different, but they seem trapped in the only reality with which they are familiar. I think the writing is fantastic, and I highly recommend this one.
"Claire focuses on the many middle-aged women, mostly mothers, around her, also wearing bikinis, but none of them, as beautiful as some of them were, suggested that kind of pending eruption she sees in the half-naked young people around her. No, Claire and her almost-forty contemporaries stand about suggesting the virtues of endurance. They had made it to middle age with a remnant of hotness, and despite the attendant sagging and indignities of aging, they managed to transcend the reality that a tattoo above the ass or behind the shoulder had been a bad idea. Yes, many of the women, Claire included, have approached forty with a verve and vigor, had Pilated and power-walked themselves into a kind of level of fitness that they had not seen since sixteen, and when they went to the pool, the self-loathing they’d been taught to feel as teenagers had been replaced by a sexy confidence."
Isn't this great? I can't even do it justice. I feel like the author has imbued this entire novel with a sarcastic, yet awfully true, and humorous portrayal of life in the ‘burbs; these characters long for something different, but they seem trapped in the only reality with which they are familiar. I think the writing is fantastic, and I highly recommend this one.