At her stepdaughter's wedding day to her pandemic boyfriend--the last gathering at the family's beach house in Cape Cod--Sarah is faced with lovers being revealed as their true selves, misunderstandings, and secrets, ensuring that nothing will ever be the same.
By alternating points of view between all the major players in the story, Weiner gives a full panoramic view of a family and their secrets leading up to the wedding. Cape Cod is vividly rendered, with the house getting a sweet metaphysical moment at the end of the book. Though the plot is somewhat soapier than usual for Weiner, she capably takes readers along for the wild ride in this funny, tender read.
Weiner takes readers back to the beach with another compelling multigenerational family story ... This highly recommended novel, with its well-written characters who revisit their pasts and reconnect with the present, illustrates exactly why Weiner is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to summer reads.
... gets at the core of just how life's twists and turns, choices and moments can consume us – and how beautiful that entanglement can be, despite the hardships ... As the story unfolded, I was engulfed by the characters' internal dialogues and the sagas that tied them together, while entwined storylines – including infidelity, questions of identity, past choices that their owners can't be proud of – threatened to change their relationships permanently ... Weiner brings to life the difficulty that exists in all of us as we evaluate our life's course, wrestling with decisions we have left behind while navigating emotions that so often feel impossible to understand ... a quick read, but a deep one, and hints at that pandemic haze that maybe we’ve all felt. The one in which life has been turned upside down and stopped, but has brazenly sped ahead, too. While the book does not address the pandemic directly, it does touch on the changes in environment, the time spent cramped in our houses with some of our loved ones while remaining separated from others ... And with its Cape Cod setting that evokes seashells, cool water, melting ice cream and summer bliss, it's sure to be the must-have beach bag item this year.
