28 Summers

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Make sure to use lots of sunscreen because this beach read is going to keep you glued to your towel! stars. I recently enjoyed a different book by this author, The Perfect Couple. My high expectations for this book were dashed. I want to optimise my life; prioritising my health and staying active and healthy to my last breath.

28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand, Review and Summary - The 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand, Review and Summary - The

I also thought the stuff she was “mad” at Leland for were ridiculous, too. Like, if you’re offended by some minor thing your best friend says, maybe try calmly talking to her about it instead of holding it against her for two decades? And, so what if Leland wants to eat a fancy meal or hang out with other friends, get over it.) I think because of that, I found Jake and Mallory each so unlikable. I couldn’t believe Mallory was indignantly screaming about what a good person she was after learning that a guy she’d dated was married. Wasn’t she was cheating all the time with Jake anyway? Cheating’s okay, but only if you’re in on it, is that the rule? I also couldn’t deal with book telling me how “kind and sympathetic” Mallory was for offering some basic sympathy after seeing Jake’s pregnant and retching wife in the bathroom. Are you kidding me? She’s screwing that pregnant woman’s husband, don’t tell me how kind she is! In the book’s prologue, the book's beloved and deeply flawed female protagonist dies of cancer at a young age. Per her request, her clandestine "same time, next year" lover is called to her deathbed. Jake asks if Mallory has any questions. Well, yes, she does: How is anyone expected to devote eighteen years to raising a child and then, one day, just leave him in an unfamiliar place among strangers twelve hundred miles from home?” Ugh. I haven't felt this empty after finishing a book since I read The Kremlin's Candidate last year.

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And Jake, oh my goodness. What a spineless, useless loser. Instead of supporting his successful wife (who is competing with men that have wives that support them), he “punishes” her for anything he doesn’t like by cheating on her. Every time she does something he doesn’t like, his response is to use it to justify his cheating. This brings me to my greatest and only real grievance with 28 Summers: very little of the actual narrative is dedicated to covering Mal and Jake's time together. While the events of the story take place over 28 Labor Day weekends, we only see them together for maybe a quarter of those long weekends—and even that is a generous estimate. Most of the narrative focuses on their lives apart and covers their major life events each year, with only intermittent and brief accounts of their annual Labor Day encounters, which only grow more infrequent and briefer as the story goes on. It’s like a fairy tale. It’s like a game of Would You Rather? Would you rather have perfect bliss for only three days or a solid but dull relationship all year long? Mallory would choose Jake every time.

28 Summers Series by Elin Hilderbrand - Goodreads

I always knew this was going to be good, but didn't dare to hope it would turn out to be a five star read for me. For example, I couldn’t sympathize with Jake feeling indignant when his wife doesn’t remember his annual trip. It’s just repugnant considering he knows perfectly well he cheats on her (and has been doing so for years on end) during those trips. I don’t know where he gets off acting like he has any right to insist on that trip. And prioritizing it above things like his wife’s career is just nuts to me. That’s not romantic, he’s a jerk.In a feat of mythic proportions, I somehow managed not to cry while reading the book, even though the ending absolutely gutted me. The prologue completely spoiled the ending, so you would think that I would've been better prepared for how it inevitably ended since I'd had the whole damn book to come to terms with it, but NOPE. I still found myself bitterly unprepared for the emotional havoc that the ending wreaked on my feelings. I absolutely hated it. But I loved it, too. I guess I'm just a masochist like that. Nothing was off-limits, nothing was deemed “too adult,” and nothing took precedence over reading; it was considered the holiest activity a person could engage in.” Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. Summers opens with a woman, Mallory Blessing, who is dying of cancer. She asks her son, Link (short for Lincoln), to call someone. It turns out to be a man named Jake McCloud, the husband of a current presidential candidate. When Mallory Blessing's son, Link, receives deathbed instructions from his mother to call a number on a slip of paper in her desk drawer, he's not sure what to expect. But he certainly does not expect Jake McCloud to answer. It's the late spring of 2020 and Jake's wife, Ursula DeGournsey, is the frontrunner in the upcoming Presidential election.