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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
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:
Complicated
Rachel and Caroline are just 17 when they decide to take a year off school and travel to Greece. They find themselves on a small island meeting some other young women who work at a local bar. Rachel is the awkward one who is used to being in Caroline’s shadow but she gains attention from an older man (in his 30s), Alistair, and soon finds herself wanting to spend as many moments of her time with him before she is supposed to return home to London. The insular daily life grows on Rachel, her secret love affair with Alistair, upscale parties at a well known businessman’s house, giggling with a group of girls as they come and go from work at the bar, drinking and beach days. Almost 18 years later, Rachel and the group of girls from that summer reconnect and Rachel is forced to consider that the summer of love wasn’t quite as innocent as she once considered.
This book has been compared to My Dark Vanessa and that is a very apt comp. It is important to know that, despite the cover and title, this book is not a romance and not light. Difficult and trigger-worthy topics are taken on. If you have read My Dark Vanessa and are interested in the #metoo movement then I think this is a book for you.
It is difficult to say I really enjoyed this book given the topics it tackles but I would say that the author deftly and considerately takes the reader into the life of Rachel. The writing and pacing created a sense of suspense as well as the unfolding awareness by the main character of what really happened that summer held my attention. This is one of those books where you can see where the book is headed and wait for the character to come to the same realization. It is very well done!
I look forward to reading more by this author and if you can manage the content, highly recommend it to other readers. Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. The Girls of Summer comes out June 6, 2023.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship
Moderate: Drug use, Infidelity, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Trafficking, Pregnancy
Minor: Abortion
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The first half of this book was so slow that it took everything in me to continue reading it. I was expecting some sort of thriller/suspense type book, but this definitely was not that type of book.
The story hops back and forth between the present and the past, and I couldn't seem to care about either timeline. The main character, Rachel, is not a compelling character at all. She basically blows up her marriage because she can't stop thinking about a man from her past...a man who was comes off as super creepy and predatory as he was in his 30s and dating/sleeping with teenagers when Rachel met him.
Was I meant to feel for Rachel in this story? Because I absolutely didn't. The fact that the author put her in an unhappy marriage doesn't make it okay that she cheats on her husband, even if it worked out better for him in the end. Tom is actually the person I felt sorry for through most of this book. Because also, Tom comes off as a loving husband who would do anything for Rachel, and Rachel kind of just comes off as a bit of a b*tch.
The second half of the book picks up a bit as we get into the only-slightly more suspenseful part of the story. I did start to feel something for all the girls that were caught in Alistair and Henry's web in the second half of this book. Rachel was still pretty unlikeable as it took her forever to be on board with Alistair being a predator and causing a lot of harm to a lot of women.
Overall, I wanted this book to be so much more than it was. The storyline was just a bit too slow for my liking and the main character just wasn't compelling.
The story hops back and forth between the present and the past, and I couldn't seem to care about either timeline. The main character, Rachel, is not a compelling character at all. She basically blows up her marriage because she can't stop thinking about a man from her past...a man who was comes off as super creepy and predatory as he was in his 30s and dating/sleeping with teenagers when Rachel met him.
Was I meant to feel for Rachel in this story? Because I absolutely didn't. The fact that the author put her in an unhappy marriage doesn't make it okay that she cheats on her husband, even if it worked out better for him in the end. Tom is actually the person I felt sorry for through most of this book. Because also, Tom comes off as a loving husband who would do anything for Rachel, and Rachel kind of just comes off as a bit of a b*tch.
The second half of the book picks up a bit as we get into the only-slightly more suspenseful part of the story. I did start to feel something for all the girls that were caught in Alistair and Henry's web in the second half of this book. Rachel was still pretty unlikeable as it took her forever to be on board with Alistair being a predator and causing a lot of harm to a lot of women.
Overall, I wanted this book to be so much more than it was. The storyline was just a bit too slow for my liking and the main character just wasn't compelling.
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Minor: Rape
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Our narratives become familiar to us. Stories we recount so often that we shape our existence for others. But how do you cope when your narrative shifts, when cultural or societal changes suggest that your narrative isn’t quite as you thought?
That is the situation Rachel finds herself in.
As a seventeen year old Rachel went backpacking with a school friend. She always felt under the shadow of her friend, Caroline. When they find themselves in a Greek island bar Rachel is amazed that the older man, Alistair, working at the bar makes such an effort to talk to her. He makes her feel special. When he offers her a job she jumps at the chance to stay on the island. She loves the place, and she likes the girls working at the bar.
There are rumours. Locals steer clear. She hears people talk about the girls who work at the bar. But Alistair loves her so she’s happy to stay. She looks forward to the rare moments she gets to visit him at his boss’s home. She doesn’t question his insistence on keeping their relationship quiet, or the occasions she’s invited to work at one of Henry’s parties and finds her memories vague.
Reading between the lines we have a very good idea of what is happening at the bar.
With Rachel now sixteen years older, she is married and seemingly happy. She and her husband return to the island and she meets a familiar face. Before we know it, she’s finding occasion to seek out Alistair. The attraction is still there. Why she doesn’t question him getting back in touch after so long seems odd. We sense there’s more to this story.
The reader recognises what’s happening in the recounted passages. The story is very much a slow burn as we wait for older Rachel to recognise what these memories actually signified and to reshape her narrative to acknowledge the pull certain older, richer, men had on her life and the way it’s developed. It comes as little surprise that the book ends with the attempt to right the narrative and put some of these characters on a slightly different path.
Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this.
That is the situation Rachel finds herself in.
As a seventeen year old Rachel went backpacking with a school friend. She always felt under the shadow of her friend, Caroline. When they find themselves in a Greek island bar Rachel is amazed that the older man, Alistair, working at the bar makes such an effort to talk to her. He makes her feel special. When he offers her a job she jumps at the chance to stay on the island. She loves the place, and she likes the girls working at the bar.
There are rumours. Locals steer clear. She hears people talk about the girls who work at the bar. But Alistair loves her so she’s happy to stay. She looks forward to the rare moments she gets to visit him at his boss’s home. She doesn’t question his insistence on keeping their relationship quiet, or the occasions she’s invited to work at one of Henry’s parties and finds her memories vague.
Reading between the lines we have a very good idea of what is happening at the bar.
With Rachel now sixteen years older, she is married and seemingly happy. She and her husband return to the island and she meets a familiar face. Before we know it, she’s finding occasion to seek out Alistair. The attraction is still there. Why she doesn’t question him getting back in touch after so long seems odd. We sense there’s more to this story.
The reader recognises what’s happening in the recounted passages. The story is very much a slow burn as we wait for older Rachel to recognise what these memories actually signified and to reshape her narrative to acknowledge the pull certain older, richer, men had on her life and the way it’s developed. It comes as little surprise that the book ends with the attempt to right the narrative and put some of these characters on a slightly different path.
Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
When Rachel was a teen, she spent time on a Greek island working in a bar and having a summer romance with Alistair. Now that Rachel is older and married to Tom, she often thinks back to that summer and her relationship to the point of obsessing about it. On a trip back to the island with Tom, she reconnects with Helena, one of the girls she worked with many years ago in the bar. Helena keeps in contact with Alistair and passes his phone number on to Rachel.
As she begins an affair with Alistair, her already weakened marriage starts to crumble. Along with this and reconnecting with Helena, dark memories of that long, lost summer start to resurface, and Rachel realizes she was part of something traumatic and deceitful.
Told in alternating timelines, the reader slowly realizes that one of the characters is similar to Jeffrey Epstein, but the author handles it very carefully. Rachel, the main character, is very naïve in both timelines, which was a little frustrating.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
I just couldn’t get into it, was boring me.
Fifteen years ago, Rachel fell in love. As a teenager on a sunkissed island, she fell in love with the nightlife, with working at a bar by the sea, by living in paradise … and with Alistair. That handsome, charismatic man twenty years her senior who made her feel things she can't explain, and still to this day lives in her mind - even now she's twenty years older, married, with a life of her own.
But she still finds herself drawn to that Island, and here once again she finds herself reaching out to the people she met that summer and revisit the people they were back then. But the more she rediscovers her old self, the more she discovers about Alistair and she starts to question if that passionate love affair she's held onto all these years was even real or if something much darker was going on that she didn't even realise …
"They feel like parts of the same puzzle, lines from the same song, chapters of the same story. Fragmented things that I had never though to put together before feeling suddenly sharp and solidified."
An electrifying debut that makes a blinding statement about what it really means to reclaim and reframe your story when didn't even know it yourself. Bishop dives into the complex issues of past traumas, and how we can often excuse it, forget it, change it or reason with it because we're not ready to accept it.
Bishop gracefully and respectfully explores the areas of consent and coercion that aren't always so obvious - the power dynamics, the charming and convincing abusers, the disbelief from society and of course the way our own memories can fail in an effort to survive.
Rachel is an endearing and relatable narrator, she's troubled and doesn't always make good choices but I found a deep connection and understanding with her - in both her 17 and 34 year old self. Now an adult, she felt stuck, like a passenger in her own life. I felt her cry of 'is this it?' deep in my soul. And in her younger self, I saw myself as a teenager and wished I could talk to her, let her know that the faces of abuse aren't always scary on the outside.
The setting is clear from the first few lines - transporting us to a sweet, sweaty summer full of youthful excitement and then that same heat that is now stifling and unbearable. Time moves fluidly between that fateful summer and the modern day, subtle parallels giving me an uneasy sense of Deja-vu. Despite the beautiful backdrop, it's clear that there's a dark cloud over that island and we're left waiting to see just how deep that darkness goes.
The story felt like looking into a warped mirror - it wasn't an exact copy, but it reflected my own rage, frustration and fears ack at me. It invoked a deep sense of sisterhood not only with the characters but anyone else who looks at this story to find their own past staring back at them. This book is a moment of catharsis and healing that I am so grateful to Katie for sharing with me.
A fiercely feminist triumph of a novel from a new voice that demands to be heard.
But she still finds herself drawn to that Island, and here once again she finds herself reaching out to the people she met that summer and revisit the people they were back then. But the more she rediscovers her old self, the more she discovers about Alistair and she starts to question if that passionate love affair she's held onto all these years was even real or if something much darker was going on that she didn't even realise …
"They feel like parts of the same puzzle, lines from the same song, chapters of the same story. Fragmented things that I had never though to put together before feeling suddenly sharp and solidified."
An electrifying debut that makes a blinding statement about what it really means to reclaim and reframe your story when didn't even know it yourself. Bishop dives into the complex issues of past traumas, and how we can often excuse it, forget it, change it or reason with it because we're not ready to accept it.
Bishop gracefully and respectfully explores the areas of consent and coercion that aren't always so obvious - the power dynamics, the charming and convincing abusers, the disbelief from society and of course the way our own memories can fail in an effort to survive.
Rachel is an endearing and relatable narrator, she's troubled and doesn't always make good choices but I found a deep connection and understanding with her - in both her 17 and 34 year old self. Now an adult, she felt stuck, like a passenger in her own life. I felt her cry of 'is this it?' deep in my soul. And in her younger self, I saw myself as a teenager and wished I could talk to her, let her know that the faces of abuse aren't always scary on the outside.
The setting is clear from the first few lines - transporting us to a sweet, sweaty summer full of youthful excitement and then that same heat that is now stifling and unbearable. Time moves fluidly between that fateful summer and the modern day, subtle parallels giving me an uneasy sense of Deja-vu. Despite the beautiful backdrop, it's clear that there's a dark cloud over that island and we're left waiting to see just how deep that darkness goes.
The story felt like looking into a warped mirror - it wasn't an exact copy, but it reflected my own rage, frustration and fears ack at me. It invoked a deep sense of sisterhood not only with the characters but anyone else who looks at this story to find their own past staring back at them. This book is a moment of catharsis and healing that I am so grateful to Katie for sharing with me.
A fiercely feminist triumph of a novel from a new voice that demands to be heard.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced