I feel like I'm right in the middle of my own Big Summer - after months and months of no plans during quarantine suddenly I've got trips three weeks in a row!
Will and I headed back down to Chincoteague, VA last weekend to spend time with some visiting family members and to again take advantage of our current ability to work from home and enjoy some beach time at the same time.
Now I'm currently sitting at the Boston airport waiting to fly back home from a trip out to Nantucket for the 4th of July! I'll wait to share pictures from that trip until my next book round up though - obviously while I was there I had to read some Elin Hilderbrand books so I'll share more on the trip and those books in my next post.
After a few days back home I'm off again this weekend to hit up Ocean City Maryland with some girlfriends. We've got a big Air BnB, masks, and I'm planning on parking my butt in a beach chair on the beach for hours with a few good books and a wine cooler or two in the sun :)
While these are all fun trips I am looking forward to getting back to a more calm routine again after they are finished - it takes a lot out of you being gone so much after spending so much time at home recently! I will be very ready for some more relaxing weekends at home with plenty of time to read when I get back again. So without further ado, here are the most recent books I've read since
my last round up!
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By Jennifer Weiner. Synopsis from Amazon:
Six years after the fight that ended their friendship, Daphne Berg is
shocked when Drue Cavanaugh walks back into her life, looking as lovely
and successful as ever, with a massive favor to ask. Daphne hasn’t
spoken one word to Drue in all this time—she doesn’t even hate-follow
her ex-best friend on social media—so when Drue asks if she will be her
maid-of-honor at the society wedding of the summer, Daphne is rightfully
speechless.
Drue was always the one who had everything—except
the ability to hold onto friends. Meanwhile, Daphne’s no longer the same
self-effacing sidekick she was back in high school. She’s built a life
that she loves, including a growing career as a plus-size Instagram
influencer. Letting glamorous, seductive Drue back into her life is
risky, but it comes with an invitation to spend a weekend in a
waterfront Cape Cod mansion. When Drue begs and pleads and dangles the
prospect of cute single guys, Daphne finds herself powerless as ever to
resist her friend’s siren song.
A sparkling novel about the
complexities of female relationships, the pitfalls of living out loud
and online, and the resilience of the human heart, Big Summer is a witty, moving story about family, friendship, and figuring out what matters most.
I'm normally a big Jennifer Weiner fan but I really didn't enjoy her last one -
"Mrs. Everything" which I reviewed here before. I was hoping her newest release would be a better hit for me and luckily it was! I enjoyed this one a lot. I giggled a bit connecting with the main character Daphne Berg who is an online influencer - a role that I randomly feel into as well! I liked her headstrong body positivity focus and she was a kind and likeable main character. The first part of the book we get to know Daphne and her friends and family and it's a pretty standard chic-lit scene. However I also enjoyed following the story line to the ridiculously over the top wedding in Cape Cod where the story twists a bit and we get romance, fights, and mystery! This was a pretty quick and easy summer read with good messages of strong female empowerment and worth, how people are never as real as they seem online, and a decent amount of drama and mystery to keep us entertained along the way.
