Title: Big Summer

Author: Jennifer Weiner

Publisher: Atria Books 2020

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Pages: 364

Rating: 2/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Modern Mrs. Darcy 2020

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.

Wow! What a huge disappointment to me. I was annoyed the first third of the book or so by the constant reminders of Instagram influencing and the fact that Daphne’s plus size. I just kept wanting to put down the book and not pick it back up again. I also got really tired of the constant flashbacks to how Drue acted in the past. Then we hit the 50% mark and I wanted to throw the book against the wall. I couldn’t get into the new direction of the book. Daphne becoming an amateur detective was completely unrealistic. The insta-love between her and Nick was unrealistic. I guessed the prologue’s importance once Drue died, but it was just annoying. I hated the entire second half of the book and disliked the first half of the book. Complete disappointment for me.

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