My Summer Darlings

By: May Cobb

Narrated by: Karissa Vacker, Amy Gordon, Nan McNamara, Kristen DiMercurio

Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's Summary

As seen on the TODAY show as “a perfect beach read.”

Three lifelong friends plus a dangerous, sexy new stranger in town add up to a scorching summer of manipulation, obsession, and murder, from the acclaimed author of The Hunting Wives.

A woman in the forest thinks she’s going to die.

I know he’s coming back for me.

Jen Hansen, Kittie Spears, and Cynthia Nichols have been friends since childhood. They are now approaching forty and their lives have changed, but their insular East Texas town has not. They stay sane by drinking wine in the afternoons, dishing about other women in the neighborhood, and bonding over the heartache of their own encroaching middle age and raising ungrateful teens.

Then Will Harding comes to town, moving into one of the neighborhood’s grandest homes. Mysterious and charming, he seems like the answer to each woman’s prayers. He’s a source of fascination for Jen, Kittie, and Cynthia, but none of them are ready for the way Will disrupts their lives.

As Will grows closer with each of the women, their fascination twists into obsession, threatening their friendships and their families. When he abruptly pulls away, each woman scrambles to discover the source of his affection. But what they’ll uncover is far more sinister and deadly than any of them could have ever imagined. 

©2022 May Cobb (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

"My Summer Darlings is addicting, twisted, and a whole lot of fun. It’s a steamy thriller that goes down with a bite, like a cold margarita on a hot day. A perfect summer read." (Simone St. James, New York Times best-selling author of The Sun Down Motel)

ugh

These women are all dumb as a bag of hair. They are weak, whiny, and pitiful, desperately throwing themselves at this stupid man. Have some self respect! What a terrible example for females everywhere. I can't stand to listen to anymore.

Don't do it!

This book is so intensely bad. I hated everything about it, and our next book club meeting is going to be the lot of us roasting it endlessly. Save your credit and pick something else!

Not good

How do narrators get chosen for books??? Karrisa Vacker was good but two of the narrators sound way too old for the characters. Totally ruined it.

Loved it!

Only bad thing about this book was the fake accent, which was HORRIBLY fake. It went from French to Russian to who knows what. Otherwise this was an awesome book and really kept me listening!

Good

This book held my interest. It's told in multiple 1st person point of view-which I enjoyed. It's obvious 1/3 of the way through, you know where the book is headed, But I don't think the author meant that to be a surprise-rather it's the suspense of the unfolding that held my attention. The only thing that I didn't like was how desperate Jen was in the story line-but it leads to a good ending. I liked this book, and felt it was worthy of my credit.

Great Story. Poor Voice Choices.

The story was great, but the voices all sounds older than the characters. I liked their voices; they just didn’t match the characters.

Save your credit

Not only is the story dull, predictable and boring...the narration is terrible. If I had to listen to the fake southern accent on Kitty any longer I would have ripped my hair out.

Really Hard Read

The story line was slow but okay. It was the voices and the extreme accents that made it difficult for me to finish. Kitty’s slang was overdone and explicit scenes were nauseating. Both hers and Cindy’s voices were made to sound old (or older) than they seemed.

Conflicted but disappointed

I’m 80+ pages in and the story is pretty fun and a page-turner. However, I can’t stand Will’s voice. It keeps pulling me out of the story and grating on my nerves. I plan to return this audiobook and finish reading the book via a hard copy.

Bad narration fir Will.

Will had many different dialects. Hard to listen to the narrator use his voice. Not enough consistency.