Reviews - Summer Island | The StoryGraph

919 reviews for:

Summer Island

Kristin Hannah

3.65 AVERAGE

btodd12's review

3.25

emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I continue to be fascinated by the growth in Kristin Hannah’s writing style. Published in 2001, Summer Island maintains some of the themes that have become Kristin Hannah hallmarks: family bonds, forgiveness, strong female protagonists. But Summer Island is predictable and the characters are flat compared to her captivating plots and deeply-developed characters in more recent novels like The Women or The Great Alone. With that said, this was still a lovely summer novel (albeit more emotional and serious than a typical beach read) with a beautifully-described setting on Summer Island, Washington.

pink_alex's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Nora walked out on her young daughters and left them behind. Now she is the big star of a radio talk show and gives advice about life, love, family and marriage … until one day the past seems to catch up with her and a big scandals leaves the world questioning her.
Ruby, her youngest daughter, gets offered a tell all to show the world how bad Nora really was. As a struggling comedian she takes the chance. Then tragedy strikes and Nora needs help after a serious accident. Ruby steps up and wants to use the chance to get more reasons to hate her mother. But then they get talking and Ruby needs to ask herself if she really knew the situation and her mother.
And then there are Dean and Eric - one was her first love, the other was her friend. She also lost them until she returns to Summer Island with her mother.
I really enjoyed the book. The characters grew on me especially all of them have flaws and aspects I didn’t like. I love that the main story is about a mother daughter relationship and about healing from their past. The story is also about loss, family, forgiveness and love. It has many layers and it touched my heart.

tara_gajjar's review against another edition

4.5

emotional funny inspiring 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

hillary72's review

2.0

Dear Editor: I think it’s your job to wordsmith, right? Go back to the first 100 pages and count how many times you see the words “gilded” and “gilt.” We get it: Nora was rich. Then in the next 100 pages, check out how many ellipses appear. I felt like I had to hold my breath each time just waiting for the “suspense” to subside. [eye roll] This book has so much overdone visual description to swim through in order to actually reach the story thread; it could probably have been cut back to 150 pages. Kind of like a one-inch cupcake covered with five inches of too-sweet frosting. I think maybe Kristin Hannah just isn’t my kind of author. Moving on.

alaynanw's review against another edition

3.0

emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

sheilarhill's review against another edition

4.0

A sweet story about redemption, forgiveness and love. So many skeletons in the family and so many conversations never had. It had caused too much heart ache and division. Ruby hated her mother for walking out on the family but what if her version of the story wasn’t true? What if Ruby’s mom wasn’t truly the villain all this time?