Standalone
Jennifer Weiner
Chick Lit / Mystery
368 Pages
Blurb:
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the “nothing short of brilliant” (People) Mrs. Everything returns with an unforgettable novel about friendship and forgiveness set during a disastrous wedding on picturesque Cape Cod.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 friendship, 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.
My Review:
This review is going to be a little different. I DNF'd this book, meaning I did not finish it. But I definitely have some opinions on what I did read.
I bought this book last year when it first came out and I guess I thought it was a fluffy summer beach read. Maybe I read the description then, I'm not sure. I didn't realize going in this was going to be an attempt at a murder mystery.
We start out with a prologue in 1994 and that was fine, interesting even. But I have no idea how the woman we read about or her son play into the plot. I never got that far. Fast forward to chapter 1 and suddenly it's 2018. So the four-year-old in 1994 would be 28. Are we reading about him? No. We meet Daphne, a plus-size instagram influencer meeting with Leela, a stylist/clothing designer at a coffee shop to talk about a social media collaboration. Leela is talking about ethically sourced materials and inclusivity and Daphne is thinking about all the trouble she had growing up finding clothes that look nice on her body and are stylish and that's about the point where I was like - hold up I don't need to read anymore of this BS.
I'm a plus size woman, true. I also like to think I appreciate fashion and have an interest in acquiring nice clothing. I'm so sick of authors writing plus size characters and their whole character ARC is having a past of being bullied or having insecurities about their body. I'm over it. If we've reached a place where we can have LGBT+ books that aren't just about coming out why can't we have books with plus size main characters where it's normalized and say "x character" is bigger the same way we'd just casually describe characters saying they were tall or short or red-haired or bald and have the main story be about a mystery or a rom-com or a horror plot that has nothing to do with pages upon pages reminiscing about their weight struggles. When I think of myself, I often don't see myself as any different than anyone else. I don't constantly internalize that my thighs are thicker than a woman I might see at the mall. I buy high-end clothing and have no trouble finding clothing that fits nice and is in my correct size. I even *GASP* feel sexy when I wear certain things. Please authors, stop reducing anyone over a size 10 into a bunch of insecure, weight obsessed, weaklings. Give us hobbies, a personality, the same as you would a skinny character!
Moving on, I skimmed to the end of the book after I realized it was a mystery just to see who the killer was and found the reveal to be not all that surprising and their motivation mostly unoriginal.
Overall, though I did not finish this book, I really disliked the parts that I did read. I probably will not try anything else by this author.
My Rating:
DNF
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