All the Summer Girls

Title: All the Summer Girls
Author: Meg Donohue
Read: March 30, 2014

Summary: In Philadelphia, good girl Kate is dumped by her fiance the day she learns she is pregnant with his child. In New York City, beautiful stay-at-home mom Vanessa is obsessively searching the Internet for news of an old flame. And in San Francisco, Dani, the aspiring writer who can't seem to put down a book--or a cocktail--long enough to open her laptop, has just been fired... again.

In an effort to regroup, Kate, Vanessa, and Dani retreat to the New Jersey beach town where they once spent their summers. Emboldened by the seductive cadences of the shore, the women being to realize how much their lives, and friendships, have been shaped by the choices they made one fateful night on the beach eight years earlier--and the secrets that only now threaten to surface. goodreads

Review: Meh. That's how I feel about this book. I know that is a cop-out but I don't know how else to describe it. Looking back on it, I think this books was kind of dumb. I didn't not like it but I could have gone without reading it and wouldn't really recommend it to anyone. Now, if that isn't a start to a riveting review, I don't know what is!

I wish I had more feels about this book but honestly, the only thing I felt was hatred towards the main characters. I plain just didn't like these girls. They were whiny and stupid. They made stupid decisions and handled things in completely immature ways. With a big stretch of the imagination, I could understand how someone could wind up in one of these three situations but the chances of all three of these people making this many dumb decisions and being best friends (but not really because they don't actually have anything in common or like each other anymore) is too much. They're all very self-centered and believe they are the only reason the three of them is friends. I'm not sure what brought them together other than the weird "quaker" school where they met.

The one redeeming factor was Colin. I enjoyed the flashbacks to his story and I really think he would have brought something to this story as a real, main character. I like that he had a unique relationship with each of them and it seems like he was actually the center of the friendships rather than any one girl. But alas, we only got glimpses of them and we are left with the aftermath of none of these girls having anything in common. The writing wasn't very good but the character development was well done besides the fact that the main characters were all pathetic. I'll give the author credit for that because I don't have to like a character for it to be well developed. Other than that, easy beach read that can be frustrating at times. For example: The author referring to "The Summer" as "When they lived together in Avalon that summer before their senior year of college" in full every time it is mentioned. We know which summer you are talking about. No need to specify to that extent every time you reference it! Sheesh.