Time for another batch of books to read together! Yippee!!! I did add an extra month because we had a tie for the last book and I didn't want to pick just one! You will soon see FIVE new threads (we had a tie) in this forum for the next few months (July - November 2020). This will allow everyone to start getting these books on hold at your libraries. The book for August is 28 Summers by Elin Hildebrand. Feel free to read them in any order that you choose and when you've finished reading, come back here and tell us what you think. Please label spoilers or even type them in white like I just did right here(highlight that blank space) so that a person has to highlight it to read it. Just a note, anyone can read these books at any time and join in the discussion at any time too! The more the merrier!
I think I'll delay this one as there are a couple hundred people ahead of me! so I won't even put it on hold til August.
Yay, my mom gave this to me! She wanted to surprise me with a little gift, so she bought/mailed it the day it was released so I couldn't get it for myself first (thank goodness Meijer carries food AND books).
Yeah... my online library only has the audiobook and the wait time is 6 months. Oops! I guess maybe I'll get to read about summer in the middle of the winter. Lol!
I got this is actual paper book format (I usually do ebooks) and I started it last night. I'm already hooked! Yay!
Every book I ordered has arrived at the same time. Luckily this one was one of those books. I loved it! Such an easy read.>>>I really wish Mallory and Jake would have just gotten married, but then there would be no story. Things were so uncomplicated until he got married and the both had kids. I'm really surprised they kept their affair a secret for so long.<<<
I finished this a couple days ago *>Even though we knew she had cancer at the beginning, I hated the way this book ended. What can I say, I love a happy ending! I found the entire relationship between Mallory and Jake unsatisfying. Perhaps because it's never an arrangement I would want, so I couldn't really empathize with it. They both yearned for more, but he was just never willing to prioritize Mallory in the way she needed. He never would have been happy living in Nantucket and they both knew it. It's hard to know if the relationship only worked because neither were fully invested in it. Ursula clearly turned a blind eye from the very beginning. She knew she couldn't provide Jake everything he needed and was happy for the trade off. If Jake and the brother (sorry I forgot his name already) were truly that close, there is no way they would have avoided the conversation around the trip to Nantucket on year 2. Mallory let people take advantage of her constantly. She could never let go of romanticizing the friendship she had with Leeland as a young girl. As an adult, Leeland was not a good friend and it took so long for Mallory to get a backbone. I did find it odd that Mallory didn't follow Leeland's writing.*<
I just listened to this audio book. : I really enjoyed the premise of "same time next year" but I'm just not that type of person I guess. I think Mallory was a doormat for all people in her life & that drove me nuts. BUT I did really enjoy the book as a whole. :
I read the first chapter of this a few days ago and the only part that I got caught up in was when they almost lost their friend on the beach. I started the second chapter unenthusiastic and put it down after a paragraph or two. Haven't wanted to pick it up since.
I finished this about a week ago and couldn't quite figure out how to react to it. I enjoyed reading it, but mostly agreed completely with @SeattleSheri and @amien1 . >>>I couldn't ever quite get over the idea of their annual "hook up" because that's basically what it was. He was cheating on his wife every year and she never had a real life partner because of it. I just didn't get it and could never have had that kind of relationship. I felt like the author had to work to remind me why they even wanted to keep up the tradition. Especially when Mallory kept having to ship off her son so she could meet up with him over Labor Day. And yes, Leland was an awful friend. Now having said all that, I can't believe I enjoyed the book so much. <<<
Well I finally got this book from the library and after a long slog with a 'mystery' of sorts set in Siberia in the 1920s, I sure need a change! Review coming soon. I have had one specific issue with this book which I'll note in my comments.
Well we went back into lockdown for a couple of weeks, libraries reopened yesterday, so I'm no further up the list now than I was before.
Ok, I've thought about this and how no matter what my negative comments, feelings were it is definitely a summer/beach read kind of book. There is a value in this kind of thing especially if you want to be taken away to a fairytale life. But even those have witches and evil lurking... After I read it, more and more reluctantly as the chapters went on, << I decided I just didn't like any of the characters. I know the Roland Park MD area and it was/is definitely an old money white privileged area of Baltimore. From the start the names/nicknames were pretentious - Coop, Fray... and there was little admirable about their lifestyles. In other reviews, they note that the author's books are great if you like adultery and up scale shallow people. I guess that is one of the appeals of her books. The characters are doing what most of us don't do or feel it's anything to boast about. Coop's endless marriages?? Puleeze. Reading it was like a the guilty pleasure of a full banana split. At one point you know you've had enough but you keep eating and then regretting it. While I did like the local references to places etc in the greater Washington DC-Baltimore area one really jumped out at me. I don't have the book for the exact wording but it was a memory of when Mallory and Leland(?) were in hs and went to a Mall. They went to Owings Mill Mall which two young Christian/Presbyterian girls would be very unlikely to do. Owings Mill is a very wealthy Jewish area and prejudice was and still can be for girls raised in Roland Park. They would definitely have gone to Towson Town which catered to their 'class'. A minor point but one the author missed as well as a reference to a Lieutenant Colonel in THE NAVY! Poor editing in the final chapters. >> I do think the references of people, places and things at the beginning of each chapter were interesting. And will I read next summer's book? Probably...
I have this one checked out now, but I'm having a hard time with it. I don't like the first person perspective in the flashback, so maybe I'll request the audio version?
