That Summer review

 Hello Interwebs!

For the first time in literally months I have a book review for you! Instead of trying to catch up with all the books I haven't reviewed this year I am just going to start up with the books I've read in June. 

The first book I finished in June was That Summer by Jennifer Weiner (2021). This was a new release that I managed to get from Libby very soon after it was released. It is a contemporary/women's fiction book about two women, both named Diana, with a secret from the past that connects them. As is the usual with my reviews, spoilers will follow after the picture. 

In this book you are introduced first to a girl named Diana who is fifteen and a mother's helper on Cape Cod for the summer. She goes to a party on the beach and something bad happens. Then you jump to the present day and a woman named Daisy Shoemaker who is mostly a homemaker in the Philadelphia suburbs with a teenage daughter, a distant husband, and a side business teaching cooking classes. The two women have an email address that is one punctuation away from each other and they connect. Through flashbacks we find out that Diana was raped at that party on the beach and it derailed her life for a long time before she ended up moving to the cape, working at a restaurant that she later purchases, a handyman she eventually marries, and a happy life. And as the book goes on and the two women become friends and confidants you find out that Daisy's husband's friend who committed suicide was the young man who held her down, Daisy's husband Hal was the one who raped her, and Daisy's brother watched it happen and didn't intervene. Together Diana and Daisy confront the men who wronged Diana, especially Daisy's husband, and Daisy ends up leaving her husband with her daughter, and moving to the cape where she allows her husband into her periphery but finally lives her own life for herself.

I really enjoyed this book. The subject matter was a little darker for how bright and summery the cover was. I appreciated the way that this book took an honest look at trauma and healing and the whole process surrounding it. I appreciated the honest look at revenge and retribution and the fact that Diana wants to confront her attackers but doesn't know what she wants past that. I liked how even though Diana's life was derailed by her trauma it didn't destroy her entire life. I really liked the connections brought between Daisy's life: her marriage to an older man, her role as a housewife, the way she's treated and spoken to like a child; and the play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, which is a play I had to read a million years ago in a literature class in college. I like how it had a sense of catharsis through the end with the confrontation with Hal about what he did, Diana getting to say her piece, and Daisy getting her life back. 

I read this book from May 31st to June 10th and gave it a 4/5 stars rating. This was my first Jennifer Weiner book but I have Big Summer on my bookshelf that I might give a read this summer. 

Happy Reading!

Richelle