Big Summer

By: Jennifer Weiner

ISBN:1501133519

Publisher: Atria Books

Publication Date: 05/05/2020

Format: Hardcover

My Rating: 5 Stars

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Sexy and satisfying, Big Summer is the perfect quarantine read.” —USA TODAY

“The beach read to end all beach reads.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Big fun, and then some. It’s empowering and surprising—a reminder to put down the phone and enjoy each moment for what it is.” —The Washington Post

A deliciously funny, remarkably poignant, and simply unputdownable novel about the power of friendship, the lure of frenemies, and the importance of making peace with yourself through all life’s ups and down. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Good in Bed and Best Friends Forever, Big Summer is the perfect escape with one of the most lovable heroines to come to the page in years.

Six years after the fight that ended their friendship, Daphne Berg is shocked when Drue Cavanaugh walks back into her life, looking as lovely and successful as ever, with a massive favor to ask. Daphne hasn’t spoken one word to Drue in all this time—she doesn’t even hate-follow her ex-best friend on social media—so when Drue asks if she will be her maid-of-honor at the society wedding of the summer, Daphne is rightfully speechless.

Drue was always the one who had everything—except the ability to hold onto friends. Meanwhile, Daphne’s no longer the same self-effacing sidekick she was back in high school. She’s built a life that she loves, including a growing career as a plus-size Instagram influencer. Letting glamorous, seductive Drue back into her life is risky, but it comes with an invitation to spend a weekend in a waterfront Cape Cod mansion. When Drue begs and pleads and dangles the prospect of cute single guys, Daphne finds herself powerless as ever to resist her friend’s siren song.

A sparkling novel about the complexities of female relationships, the pitfalls of living out loud and online, and the resilience of the human heart, Big Summer is a witty, moving story about family, friendship, and figuring out what matters most.

Buy the Book

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#BigSummer

Praise

“Sexy and satisfying. . . Observant, self-aware, and very funny, Big Summer will delight Jennifer Weiner’s many fans and could be just the absorbing take-me-away read so many of us need right now.” —USA Today

“It's the beach read to end all beach reads.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Part dissection of female friendships, part murder mystery, part social-media tutorial, part love story and—the best of them all—part portrait of an overweight, under-confident striver. Daphne is an endearing creation: funny, plucky, willing to acknowledge certain critical lapses in judgment and eminently worthy of the love that she is certain will never come her way.” —The Wall Street Journal

“It’s deliciously fun: frothy entertainment with surprising depth. Big Summer is big fun, and then some. It's empowering and surprising—a reminder to put down the phone and enjoy each moment for what it is, rather than what it could look like on Instagram.” —The Washington Post

"Clever and empowering." —People

“Everything you’d hope to find in a beach read: complicated female friendships, unhappy rich people, a hardworking heroine with an eye for fashion, and an Instagram-worthy setting for an over-the-top wedding on Cape Cod.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Weiner is deft at plumbing the depths of female friendship and developing characters readers will care about. This highly recommended book will appeal not only to the author’s fans but also to a new audience looking for a fresh take on women’s fiction.” —Library Journal (starred)

“Weiner’s story of female friendships (after Mrs. Everything) mixes a splash of romance, a dash of humor, and a pinch of mystery to create a deliciously bloody poolside cocktail. Weiner’s surprising tale is hard to put down.” —Publishers Weekly

"If you love Jennifer Weiner, you’ll love this one. And if you’re a newbie, start here." —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“The perfect beach read . . . A funny and tender examination of female friendship in all of its messy glory.”—PopSugar

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About the Author

Novelist, feminist, NYT opinion writer, mom.

A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Jennifer Weiner’s books have spent over five years on the New York Times bestseller list with over 11 million copies in print in 36 countries.

She is the author of the novels Good in Bed (2001); In Her Shoes (2002), which was turned into a major motion picture starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine; Little Earthquakes (2004); Goodnight Nobody (2005); the short story collection The Guy Not Taken (2006); Certain Girls (2008); Best Friends Forever (2009); Fly Away Home (2010); Then Came You (2011); The Next Best Thing (2012); All Fall Down (2014), and Who Do You Love (2015). She is also the author of two middle-grade novels, The Littlest Bigfoot (2016) and Little Bigfoot, Big City (2017), and the nonfiction collection Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing (2016). Her most recent novel, Mrs. Everything (2019) received both trade accolades and raves from readers.

Jennifer Weiner grew up in Connecticut and graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English literature from Princeton University in 1991. She worked as a newspaper reporter in central Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Philadelphia, where she was a feature writer and columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Now a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times Op-Ed and Sunday Review, Weiner’s essays – “Mean Girls in the Retirement Home” and “Another Thing to Hate About Ourselves” – rose to the top of the “most emailed” lists and have been reprinted in newspapers and media outlets across the world.

With over 145,000 fans on Facebook and 164,000 followers on Twitter, Weiner appeared on Time magazine’s list of “140 Best Twitter Feeds.” Forbes magazine put her on their list of “25 Working Moms to Follow on Twitter," writing "tune in for hilarious shards of brilliance." Entertainment Weekly named her as part of its "brain trust" for social media coverage of the 2016 election.

A 2014 New Yorker profile called Jen an “unlikely feminist enforcer” and celebrated her “lively public discussion about the reception and consumption of fiction written by women.”

In 2015, Slate praised Jen's "power-tweeting. . . feminist brand" and her mastery of the "haterbrag," "a bit of social media sleight-of-hand that turns an insult into an asset."

Jen uses her social media platform to encourage women's voices, self-esteem, and body positivity. In the summer of 2016, she posted a picture of herself in a bathing suit with the #weartheswimsuit hashtag, encouraging women of all ages and sizes to put on their bathing suits and get in the water. The movement, which was covered in media outlets including PopSugar, Time, Kveller, The Today Show and Good Morning America, encouraged hundreds of women to shuck their cover-ups, skip the heat rash, get in the water and post shots of themselves in their swimsuits.

Jennifer has appeared on many national television programs, including The Today Show, Good Morning America, and CBS Sunday Morning, as well as #RichkidsofBeverlyHills and, as herself, on Younger.

Her work has been published in dozens of newspapers and magazines, including Seventeen, Redbook, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Allure, Ladies Home Journal, Time and Good Housekeeping. Jennifer can be found on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram and, in real life, Philadelphia, where she lives with her family. Website