Summer Darlings

By: Brooke Lea Foster

Narrated by: Rebekkah Ross

Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

“Filled with 1960s nostalgia and a host of deftly drawn characters” (Renée Rosen, author of Park Avenue Summer), Summer Darlings pulls back the curtain on one mysterious and wealthy family as seen through the eyes of their nanny - a college student who, while falling in love on Martha’s Vineyard, is also forced to reckon with the dark side of privilege.

In 1962, coed Heddy Winsome leaves her hardscrabble Irish Brooklyn neighborhood behind and ferries to glamorous Martha’s Vineyard to nanny for one of the wealthiest families on the island. But as she grows enamored with the alluring and seemingly perfect young couple and chases after their two mischievous children, Heddy discovers that her academic scholarship at Wellesley has been revoked, putting her entire future at risk.

Determined to find her place in the couple's wealthy social circles, Heddy nurtures a romance with the hip surfer down the beach while wondering if the better man for her might be a quiet, studious college boy instead. But no one she meets on the summer island - socialite, starlet, or housekeeper - is as picture-perfect as they seem, and she quickly learns that the right last name and a house in a tony zip code may guarantee privilege, but that rarely equals happiness.

Praised as “a perfect summer book packed with posh people, glamor, mystery, and one clever, brave, young nanny” by New York Times best-selling author Nancy Thayer, Summer Darlings promises entrance to a rarefied world, for anyone who enjoyed Tigers in Red Weather or The Summer Wives.

©2020 Brooke Lea Foster (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio

It Could Have Been A Good Story...

First off, I don’t leave bad reviews lightly. I’ve written novels myself and know the effort it takes to complete one. I’ve also served as a professional reviewer. “Summer Darlings” has a lot potential. The story was actually decent but the characterization was so poor, it ruined everything. The main character, Hetty, is an absolute idiot. She idolizes wealth yet skewers the one person trying to break free from that lifestyle. She is a first-rate liar, yet when the object of her affection turns out to be one too, she is furious. She lives on Planet Hetty, completely self-absorbed, with no redeeming characteristics at all. The one character that was fully developed and likeable was Ash Porter. Ok, and Gigi McCabe.

So much more could have been done with the characters and the plot. The framework was there but it was overshadowed by Hetty’s incompetence. By the end, I was literally yelling in response to some of her stupid conclusions. I almost packed it in and exchanged the book, but I was only an hour away from being done and ultimately, I do have respect for the effort that any author makes to write a story. Even if it it’s a relatively poor one.

A light listen and an improbable story

If you want to listen to a book in which every single person is a terrible human, this is it. I downloaded it for a beach trip. I enjoyed the first half, then kept waiting for it to get better during the second, but it just kept getting darker.

Shallow Book

This book was really silly and not very interesting! I kept listening and thinking something worth while was going to happen, which nothing ever did!
Mainly though, I really didn’t like the reader and will in the future try to avoid reads by her☹️. The cadence was
boring, I’m sorry to say! I always think the reader makes the read👍