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jenean 's review for:
The Summer Pact
by Emily Giffin
Oh, I SO wanted to like this book. It sounded great (if a little similar to Stephen Rowley’s “The Celebrants”). It started off well. And then. Bleurgh.
The main three characters are best friends since freshman year of college. They used to be a part of a tight-knit foursome, until they lost one of their friends just before graduation. After that, the surviving three made a pact (named for their lost friend Summer) to always be there for each other in times of need. Fast forward 10 years, and they each have their own lives in different parts of the county, but are still close. When Hannah (half-heartedly working in a job in Atlanta that clearly isn’t hat she wants, if she even *knows* what she wants) suffers a loss of her own, she calls on her besties Lainey (now an actress based in NY) and Tyson (a lawyer in DC), and of course they rush to her side to be there for her as promised. Each is facing something in their lives that takes time and energy to process, and together they decide to take a trip that will allow them each the time to face those issues.
Up till now, all good. Love the premise, and I think this could really go somewhere. And then it didn’t. The characters had so much potential - great backstories, but things fell flat and they seemed so black & white and 2-dimensional (a big recurring issue I have, maybe I am too nitpicky?). The in-fighting between two of the characters seemed dumb (again, reminding me of “The Celebrants” and how I couldn’t understand in that book why those people were even friends with each other) and made the turn that their relationship later took seem even dumber. Addressing the major issue in Lainey’s life was thrust into the story and needed to be more than a 1 or 2 chapter side trip, and the abruptness with which is was handled (both by the author and the characters) didn’t do it justice. And then the side story that THAT brought in - really? Just no.
Emily Giffin wrote one of my favorite books ever (“The One and Only”), and I’ve enjoyed most of her others, but this one just fell really flat. I recommend skipping.
The main three characters are best friends since freshman year of college. They used to be a part of a tight-knit foursome, until they lost one of their friends just before graduation. After that, the surviving three made a pact (named for their lost friend Summer) to always be there for each other in times of need. Fast forward 10 years, and they each have their own lives in different parts of the county, but are still close. When Hannah (half-heartedly working in a job in Atlanta that clearly isn’t hat she wants, if she even *knows* what she wants) suffers a loss of her own, she calls on her besties Lainey (now an actress based in NY) and Tyson (a lawyer in DC), and of course they rush to her side to be there for her as promised. Each is facing something in their lives that takes time and energy to process, and together they decide to take a trip that will allow them each the time to face those issues.
Up till now, all good. Love the premise, and I think this could really go somewhere. And then it didn’t. The characters had so much potential - great backstories, but things fell flat and they seemed so black & white and 2-dimensional (a big recurring issue I have, maybe I am too nitpicky?). The in-fighting between two of the characters seemed dumb (again, reminding me of “The Celebrants” and how I couldn’t understand in that book why those people were even friends with each other) and made the turn that their relationship later took seem even dumber. Addressing the major issue in Lainey’s life was thrust into the story and needed to be more than a 1 or 2 chapter side trip, and the abruptness with which is was handled (both by the author and the characters) didn’t do it justice. And then the side story that THAT brought in - really? Just no.
Emily Giffin wrote one of my favorite books ever (“The One and Only”), and I’ve enjoyed most of her others, but this one just fell really flat. I recommend skipping.