Summer People, Sally Blakely (Review by Rachel Taran)
4.5/5 Stars
As a millennial that grew up loving classic 90s-2000s romcoms, this book was perfection! From the setting to the characters to the plot, Sally Blakely hit all the right notes. A group of friends is just graduating college and they decide to book a final vacation together at a beach cottage. On the cusp of entering their own lives separate from each other for the first time in four years, they make a pact to return to the same beach together every summer…and also to never allow a romantic relationship between members of the group. From this setup, the chapters bounce back and forth between the current summer (some 10ish years later) and the previous summers following the initial vacation. We are slowly able to piece together how relationships in the group have changed, the life path that each character has taken, and the journey of our main character, Sutton, as she mourns the drifting of the group and also tries to find her way back to them.
Due to life experiences, Sutton is extremely independent yet yearns for family. Luckily, her college friend group has become the family she never had and she values it more than anything. As graduation draws near, she clings to the dynamic of the group even though they are all about to be moving in different directions: Sutton is headed to San Francisco to work in her uncle’s restaurant, Gabe heads to Denver, Davi is off to New York, and Laurel lands in LA. Their graduation vacation together solidifies that they will stay friends forever, no matter where life takes them. I found this first summer trip together so bittersweet, as I’m sure so many of us (myself included) have experienced the naivety that at such a pivotal moment in life when everything is very obviously about to change, a part of you wants to believe it never will. This is exactly how it plays out with this group. I felt a lot of emotion seeing how their friendships changed over time and feeling for Sutton when it seemed like nobody else cared as much as she did.
In addition to the original four members of the group, newcomer Everett joins their first summer vacation and is immediately welcomed as their fifth member. He has his own previous connections with Sutton that no one else in the group knows about and needless to say, this complicates things drastically for the two of them. The story that unfolds between Sutton and Everett across summers is the heartbeat of the plot as we learn more about what happened between the two of them and the impact this had on the whole group in the years that followed.
If you love emotional stories, heartfelt character dynamics, nostalgic romps through young adulthood, and happy endings, I think you will love this book as much as I did. The chapters were short yet engaging, and I loved bouncing between summers to learn more about everything that happened. The ending was a sweet bow on the entire package and left me smiling even after I had finished the last page.