amandas_reading_nook 's review for:

The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin

3.0

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I really liked the first 20-30% of this book, and I thought it had some beautiful writing on loss and grief, but then it kept taking unexpected turns and I felt like I had no idea where we were headed. In general, I would say this book lacked focus. We start the story with Hannah and her failed engagement, then switch to Lainey and her myriad of issues. And that would be fine if you thought about this book as a character study of a group of friends, but we don't spend much time on Tyson so that dynamic is uneven. At a certain point, I found it hard to keep sympathizing with the characters as I found them increasingly frustrating.  I kept questioning how they were even still friends as they seemed to keep their group together out of a misplaced sense of guilt rather than genuine affection for each other.

I also thought the relationship between Tyson and Lainey was forced and unnecessary.

Overall, not bad but not my favorite.