All The Summer Girls, by Meg Donohue

Three best friends, Kate, Dani, and Vanessa, have left their carefree youth behind, but not forgotten.  Especially not the traumatic death of Kate's twin brother, Colin, the year before they all graduated from college.  Now, eight years later, all three women find their lives in a bit of turmoil.  Will a return to their summer haunt, and the scene of Colin's death, help them resolve their long standing issues?

This is one of those books that is probably going to appeal widely to mainstream readers.  It seems like it will be a huge hit for summer reading lists, and I bet many women will pore over it at the beach.  But I really really disliked it.  To me, it was a book about privileged, shallow women, with first world problems.  I could find nothing likable or redeemable about a single one of the three main characters.  They just seemed spoiled and selfish to me.  Basically, this book is what happens when the girls from Pretty Little Liars grow up, get married, and have careers.  And in young adult books, I can tolerate that shallowness, but not so much in contemporary adult literature.  Yet, as I said, many many readers adore this kind of book, so I understand I am in the minority here.

The heart of the story is not bad, and the writing is not bad for the most part.  There just was nothing remarkable about the book for me.  Chick lit is not my favorite genre to begin with, and when the book is pretty much standard fare, adding nothing new to the genre, my attention wanders.  Luckily the book is short, but even so, I felt like I was slogging through wet sand just to get to the end.  

Fans of chick lit will devour this book with glee.  But if you are looking for substance, you will probably find this wanting.

I received a review copy courtesy of TLC Book Tours in exchange for my honest review.  See the rest of the tour here.

  

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