Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
⭐️ 2.5 stars
About 80% of this book is dialogue, and it’s… not very good.
I appreciate the vibes and concepts Mallory was shooting for, but this one fell short for me in many ways. The repetitive internal fretting and over-explanatory conversations between friends felt pretty mind-numbing after the first 100 pages.
About 80% of this book is dialogue, and it’s… not very good.
I appreciate the vibes and concepts Mallory was shooting for, but this one fell short for me in many ways. The repetitive internal fretting and over-explanatory conversations between friends felt pretty mind-numbing after the first 100 pages.
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-paced
The Summer Book Club
I was ready to DNF this after the first 5min. The names are so stupid. “Paris, Beau, Jagger, Wolf, Garth,
A 37 year old woman was using phrases like “yucky tummy” “icky” and was talking about setting up scenes for her “fruits and vegetable of the month club” where she was dressing up produce?! Wtf.
Raging men hating feminists. 🙄
Having to have your ex husband who you divorced 10 years ago stop by to “warn you” he was in town is ridiculous.
The men in this book are so unrealistic stupid and cruel.
“Very large very manly flashlight.” How can a flashlight be manly? FFS.
Cassie has absolutely no self worth.
I feel like having a private group chat with “grandparents” your kids have met for a few days once is a big parental red flag… even if they are nice.
“Love can give you wings, Laurel and I can’t wait to see you fly.” 🤮
Not only was this an absurd story the audiobook narrator was so robotic and insufferable if I hadn’t spent a credit on this I would have DNF’d so fast.
Not only was this an absurd story the audiobook narrator was so robotic and insufferable if I hadn’t spent a credit on this I would have DNF’d so fast.
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
The Summer Book Club
By Susan Mallery: An Essay
While a book in this genre may seem unassuming and of no value I would beg to differ. Not just because my friend Watson asked me to write a 3 page essay about this book but for valid reasons as well! Not that writing an essay 10 years after graduating high school for a friend is not a valid reason… but I digress.
This book begins as many romance novels do. Susan Mallery’s cast of characters while unassuming are women struggling with their day to day hardships and romantic lives. First to be introduced is Laurel, the mother of two characters Jager and Ariana. Recently divorced, Laurel was left suddenly by her husband Bo before the story began. While Ariana, the youngest of the sisters is also struggling with feelings of abandonment she is nowhere near as harmed by it as Jager. Jager in class is found to be talking about how “Men cannot be trusted” that they will “Always disappoint you”. This rhetoric has alarmed her teachers and they bring it to Laurel's attention in the first chapter. Asking Laurel to seek out positive male role models for her daughters sake to give her a wider perspective on the opposite sex. Shocked by her daughter's behavior endeavors to do so.
What does this first chapter say about the author? As we see in chapters to come Susan is not a fan of the opposite sex for more than just that, Sex. This first chapter however highlights a want to find the good in men when done wrong by them. That it is important to prove to the ones closest to us that even if you have been wronged by someone that the whole group they belong to is not forsaken. Skipping over some sections and diving deeper into Laurel as a character. In her hunt for thrift store finds, she meets Colden. An upstanding man who just moved to town. While the immediate attraction is evident to all but the characters themselves the two agree to become friends and prove to Jager that not all men are bad.
Paris is introduced not long after. Paris and Laurel are the only two members of the aforementioned Summer Book Club. Paris, struggling with anger management issues, was left by her husband 10 years ago. Getting her life back in order she gets herself into therapy and works through those issues. We meet Paris post therapy. Now a changed woman, she wonders if she is ready for love just as her ex husband returns to his home after his wife died. Newly widowed Jonas attempts to reintegrate into Paris’s life. Proclaiming towards the end of the book that he always loved her. That even while he was with his new wife he had always felt that he was meant to be with Paris.
A complicated situation for Jonas for certain. He remained with his wife despite the lack of love, upon finding out about her cancer diagnosis. This grapples with the question of what is best for someone. Is the truth what people need in their final days? Or is a happy lie something to help soothe the soul in the times before we pass on? To die thinking you are loved but for it to be untrue, Does it really matter? You would have died happy certainly. But to have your opportunity to die with a true love stolen from you. That I believe is more harmful. As the love is not true, its but a facsimile of true love. They will die not feeling the real thing. Never to know what the real thing was or that they were even deceived to begin with.
Paris’s struggle as a character is that of someone recovering from childhood trauma. Manifesting as anger and while Susan portrays her as a main character the far more gripping plot is in her partner Jonas and his actions. Raising much larger questions about truth and lies, what is important to us in our final days. Paris finds love in Jonas again and proves that she can love again and be loved in turn. The exploration of her trauma shows that at some point in all of our trauma cycles we must put the past behind us and learn to trust ourselves.
The last member of the book club to be introduced is by far the most complicated and the one we spend the most time with. Twenty eight year old Cassie. Cassie's parents died when she was just fourteen. Her siblings in their twenties at the time and on their own struggled with their grief in their own way and didn't have time to help cassie through her troubles. Finding her place in being helpful to others in their time of need Cassie has struggled with control in her life. Attempting to control her remaining family members' emotional states when they were down. Transitioning into her later years Cassie's need to control manifests in attempting to “fix” her partners. She would often meet men down on their luck and get them out of debt. Attain for them furniture and expensive gadgets to raise their standard of living. But as Cassie fails to recognize in this book, once the men are “fixed” they have no need for someone who only exists to fix them. I place fixed in quotes because what Cassie does is not fix them. The men remain the same men they were before they met her just with substantially less problems. Finding that their partner Cassie has no role in their lives once the “fixing” is done they in turn leave her.
The fixing is something the book never faces. Cassie upon being dumped, moves to the same city as the other main characters to explore a property left to her by her recently departed uncle. Finding an excavator who previously agreed with the aforementioned uncle to explore the land that Cassie now owns. Cassie strikes a deal to allow him to continue while she decides how to find her place in this new town. Lucky for Cassie's this man is handsome and kind and will make for a good partner. Finding this sudden windfall of a man stops Cassie from doing any internal searching and discovering that she in fact did not need to fix any of these men in her life. That her real dissatisfaction in life was that she sought control in the lives of others.
The author covers, in Cassie's story, that we cannot seek to control the lives of others and that true happiness only comes from within us once we find how to control our own lives. When we feel safe enough to make our own choices and not rely on others to hold us up in this world. Cassie is told to move out of her remaining family members home by her brother and sister to “discover herself” and to “stop trying to fix us”. It is no coincidence that once Cassie does that she finds that she can be happy and not need to “fix” the men she meets. That she can find purpose in her own actions and not the actions of others. She endeavors to repair the property her uncle left for her and turn it into an orchard. This orchard becomes the fruits of her new self. Assisting her in becoming a more rounded person and not as stunted as when we first met her. Cassie’s change is exemplified in her speech. Early in the book she speaks in an almost childlike pleading way. Telling her brother and sister that she will hate them forever for kicking her out and calling them “meanies”. But the cassie we see at the end is a homeowner/Business owner. She gets a call from her sister asking her to return to help out and this new Cassie declines to return as she has a new found purpose in her new life. Not giving up the part of her that cares for others she offers to return for a week or so to be with her sister but insists that she must return to her new purpose.
Cassie’s character holds a magnifying glass to us. Allowing us to explore ourselves in what coping mechanisms we might have instilled in our own lives. It is noteworthy that Cassie does not deal with this issue on her own, but with the urging of her family and friends finds the strength within herself to progress in her life and become better. This book's main goal is clear. To explore a series of characters struggling with some type of change in their life. But Susan Mallery expressly chose to have these characters deal with these changes with friends and family. I believe that it was Susan's direct goal to show how important that people currently in our lives are. To highlight that the friends closest to you are, on many occasions, the instigators of great change.
This was far too much for a simple romance book. I’m extrapolating a lot cause, for real, none of this shit is blankly stated and I think Susan didn’t intend for this deep of a dive.
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Loved the idea but it fell flat to me. Lots of repetition, thr characters were too cookie cutter, pick me. This could have ended about 300 pgs in.
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3.5 stars
This book played out like a netflix original movie, in the best way. It was really easy to read and a good pass time. It was neither a hit nor a miss, just a pretty solid read.
I loved the "girlhood" aspect of the book as we follow along these women navigating their own personal struggles and coming together to have a great friendship.
The book has a lot of distinct characters that I really loved. I loved that all the girls had their own things going on in the plot and all of these plot points were explored with detail instead of certain parts being brushed over.
If you're looking for a light and easy read while just chilling out my the sun, I would suggest this.
Thank you Netgalley for the arc!
This book played out like a netflix original movie, in the best way. It was really easy to read and a good pass time. It was neither a hit nor a miss, just a pretty solid read.
I loved the "girlhood" aspect of the book as we follow along these women navigating their own personal struggles and coming together to have a great friendship.
The book has a lot of distinct characters that I really loved. I loved that all the girls had their own things going on in the plot and all of these plot points were explored with detail instead of certain parts being brushed over.
If you're looking for a light and easy read while just chilling out my the sun, I would suggest this.
Thank you Netgalley for the arc!
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes