Summer Reading Challenge: Summer Secrets by Jane Green (Chrissy’s review)

Summer Secrets
written by Jane Green
published by St. Martin’s Press, 2015

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, iBooks, Book Depository, Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange  for an honest review.

Did I enjoy this book: I did enjoy Summer Secrets. It starts out a bit slow, but it sucks you in until you are invested in Cat’s life. I didn’t want to not read this book. I finished it in just over a day. It is a heartbreaking story but so very good.

Cat is a recovering-relapsing-recovering alcoholic. She has struggles. She has a past. She learns that her distant, uncaring father is not actually her father. This is a real story about alcoholics. You feel Cat’s pain, self-loathing, denial, pride, fear, worth, etc. It’s all there. You can’t help but feel for Cat. You want to not like her. You want to say she deserves what she got. But you don’t want those things. You don’t want her to continue to let sobriety slip through her fingers. You don’t want her fail. You want her to make it. You want her to find her happiness. You want her to be the best mother she can be. You just do.

Summer Secrets is a powerful book that will stay with you.

Would I recommend it: Yes, this would be a great beach read or anytime read.

   

About the book – from Goodreads: June, 1998: At twenty seven, Catherine Coombs, also known as Cat, is struggling. She lives in London, works as a journalist, and parties hard. Her lunchtimes consist of several glasses of wine at the bar downstairs in the office, her evenings much the same, swigging the free booze and eating the free food at a different launch or party every night. When she discovers the identity of the father she never knew she had, it sends her into a spiral. She makes mistakes that cost her the budding friendship of the only women who have ever welcomed her. And nothing is ever the same after that.

June, 2014: Cat has finally come to the end of herself. She no longer drinks. She wants to make amends to those she has hurt. Her quest takes her to Nantucket, to the gorgeous summer community where the women she once called family still live. Despite her sins, will they welcome her again? What Cat doesn’t realize is that these women, her real father’s daughters, have secrets of their own. As the past collides with the present, Cat must confront the darkest things in her own life and uncover the depths of someone’s need for revenge.