All the Summer Girls

Do covers persuade you to choose certain novels? I loved the cover for All the Summer Girls by Meg Donohue. I had also heard some great things about this novel. It includes three women in swimsuits at the beach on the cover. The novel is short in length. It takes place over one summer weekend.
Synopsis:
Kate is getting ready for her big day. Her morning is going normally except her finance has changed his schedule. He wants to discuss their relationship. He breask the engagement and says that she needs help. Kate has two very best Friends since Kindergarten Vanessa and Dani. Vanessa is facing a different delimma. She gave up her career to be a stay at home mom. How happy is she really when she worries about her gorgeous husband having affairs? Then there is Dani the third friend she as well has spent a great deal of time with Kate and her family. Danis parents are divorced. She only has a relationship with her father. Dani has been living out in San Francisco trying to finish her novel and not keep a job. Each woman has a cross to bear for what happened years ago when they shared a beach house. These events surround Kates brother Colin. Will they be able to put the past behind them?
My Thoughts:
I did not enjoy this novel very much. I thought that the characters are great. They are well developed. The novel was a little short. I wondered the climax of the story really got resolved. There is a part of me that wanted to find out more. The story did not feel resolved to me.
I did feel that author asked an interesting question. How does the past impact your future? A death that touched Kate, Vanessa, and Danis lives all made them choose a different future. Have you ever thought what would have happened if I had chosen differently? I know that I have these thoughts all the time myself. I then tell myself that you cant change the past but can only move forward.

Characters come alive in Meg Donohue’s novel, All the Summer Girls. Joined at the hip since early elementary school, three girls are close, but each harbors a secret. All the Summer Girls tests the bounds of friendship as the girls spend a weekend together after eight years apart. One needs to be honest with herself and grow up, one needs to decide what is best for her and her two-year-old daughter, and the third Summer Girl needs to come to grips with reality; her life is changing. All three of them have to face their past before they can move toward the future.
Donahue weaves a story of childhood, complicated relationships, betrayal, and long hidden secrets in such a way that the reader is drawn into the Summer Girls.
All the Summer Girls is the perfect summer read. Kick back and be prepared to be captivated by Meg Donohue’s Girls….Maybe you will want them as your friends.

The three of them had met at the Philadelphia Friends School years before, and their friendship bonds had cemented during the summers spent at the Avalon Beach house. They were very different from one another, yet their connections came from a common bond developed in the school: Katherine (Kate) Harrington, whose twin brother Colin often joined them; Vanessa Dale, whose hippie parents were a constant reminder of how different her life was from her friends’ lives; and Dani Lowenstein, whose father owned the house on Avalon Beach and provided the backdrop to the fabulous summers.

Now, years later, they come together for one more summer, hoping to heal from the secrets of the past and a tragic event that left them all reeling, and the problems in their present. Kate’s fianc Peter has just broken up with her only weeks before their wedding; Vanessa is still reeling from her husband Drew’s betrayal with another woman; and Dani is suffering from her own guilt and unable to maintain any kind of life out in San Francisco.

Will their secrets break them apart, or will they find enough strength in their friendship to help them heal?

All the Summer Girls: A Novel (P.S.)

is alternately narrated by the three friends, and the reader can jog along with them as they agonize over the past and try to carve out a future.

An enjoyable and somewhat predictable read, it was also very satisfying and the perfect ending to a summer. 4.0 stars.

It took me a year to find this book in my Kindle and I am glad I did. I read it in one sitting of about 6 hours and it was a page-turner.

I really liked Kate, Vanessa and Dani and could relate to them all for different reasons. Colin is the main character, as you will see and I found
it very clever the way his story unraveled through the stories of each girl. I also liked the fact that although it took place primarily in Avalon, Nj,
down the shore (I am a former Jersey shore girl myself), each character lived in an interesting big city, Philly for Kate, San Francisco for Dani,
and NYC for Vanessa. Her placement of characters reflected each of them well. Their friendship seemed real and although bumpy was based in love and loyalty. Inspired me.
Dialogue was very well done and writing was excellent. I look forward to other books by this author.

This is a really good summer read about Vanessa, Kate and Dani who used to be best friends who did everything together. Something happened during one summer trip to the Jersey shore, something which changed the fabric of their friendship and which they have never confronted in the years since. Eight years later the girls are all at crossroads in their lives, each with choices to make which will have a profound effect on their future and at this point they arrange a weekend trip to the Jersey shore, the first time the three of them will have been alone together in eight years.

It is a really interesting read, one which you can really get your teeth into as you try and work out what drove these women apart eight years ago and what the secrets are that each is keeping from the others. I really liked the characters – each woman is totally different from the others with a different character and different life goals yet their friendship has endured over the years, despite the “cooling off” since their last beach trip. I really enjoyed spending the weekend with them and watching them confront the past together, as well as the choices that each has to make for the future.

It is a story of friendship and life choices, with some very poignant moments but also some humorous ones. A very good beach read.

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