Funny, touching & powerful!

A beautifully written novel about an estranged dysfunctional family that loves each other but don't know how to show it to each other anymore.

I loved the premise of this novel and the cast of complex, conflicted but likable characters. They will make you chuckle and make your heartache.

It just missed out on 5⭐ I felt the ending was wrapped up a little too neatly and whilst it was hopeful it just felt a bit flat for me.

Fast-paced and fabulously penned, let this novel take you on a trip - those European destinations are so gorgeously described you'll wish you were there!

Thanks to Penguin Books UK & Netgalley for sending me this in exchange for an open and honest review.

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Thank you for the opportunity to review this book!

I was curious about it since I've seen it on Instagram a lot. After I've read around 10% I realized that this book is not for me. The author has a very repetitive way of writing since a lot of the sentences starts with she, he or the persons name. The old "show, not tell" is also an advice I would give the author. I'm sorry this was not for me.

This book got of to a great start introducing Charlotte, the matriarch and winner of the cruise. However, as the siblings came onto the scene I found it difficult to engage with them either individually or collectively. Descriptions of the cruise itself and each destination was very well done. Just not my sort of book.

I'm in two minds about this book: on one side I liked the concept and the descriptions of the cruise.
On the other side I found hard to connect to the characters and like them.
The characters seems sometimes a bit flat and even if I liked how they relate to each other I wasn't involved.
I think that it's a good read even with all the mentioned issues and I recommend it.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I liked this but didn't love it. The different locations were great and really well described and I also liked the family dynamics. The ending was somewhat disappointing though - it seemed quite rushed.

This is a Reece Witherspoon book choice, and I do read many of her picks but despite the alluring title, this didn’t make me smile.

A widow enters a dodgy writing competition and wins on the basis of a story about her sex life. The prize? A cruise. One with the family no less. A very dysfunctional one at that. What can go wrong?

I did enjoy being on the European cruise, visiting the various cities and ports, but I couldn’t get on board (excuse the pun) with the characters.

In The Jetsetters we meet the Perkins family. A estranged family who all come together when the mother Charlotte wins a cruise going from Athens to Barcelona. Charlotte wants her family together, she believes this trip will bring them together and heal them.

Each member of the family had some secrets, secrets that in some cases won't stay hidden for long. They act like a happy family but they are anything but.

I enjoyed very much the places they visited and the tours they took. The places were truly beautiful and the description could travel you there with them. The revelations came at gradually but in the end I had some unanswered questions.

I didn't connect with the characters. I found Charlotte, the mother, the one who made the least effort to connect with her kids, her acts were more about what she wanted and what she thought was important.

I liked how the three siblings came together and they cared about each other. It is a book about a family and as in any family the situations aren't black and white.

* I received a arc from the publisher through Netgalley.

Charlotte Perkins aged 71 has just lost her best friend, she enters the competition “ Become A Jetsetter” by sending in a racy love story. If she wins she hopes to take her family and maybe meet a man along her travels!!

She is thrilled to win and spend time with her children; lLee, Cord and Regan.

Lee is an actress on a break, she has gone home to spend time with her mother.

Cord is a recovering alcoholic who is struggling to tell his family that he is gay and has just proposed to his boyfriend.

Regan is married and has 2 daughters. Her husband Matt wants to go on the trip with her, but she wants a divorce.

This is a journey in more than one way as the family spend time together, we can see that they have their own secrets, which affects all of them.

I love a family drama, and this was told in a sensitive and at times funny way. I wanted the family to reconnect and have a happy ending!!

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

I liked this book.

I didn't however love it.

Told from varying points of view, we get to see the dynamics of family life for a 3 siblings and their mother, who have throughout their lifetime had many difficult challenges to face.

Lee, Reagan and Cord all love their mother but all suffer with feelings of loss and abandonment.

Now they have a chance to rectify that with a holiday of a life time.

But not all is as it seems.

Secrets will be revealed as more lies are told and unfortunately what should be a dream vacation turns into something less delightful.

This is a tale of family dramas with an underlying message that you can be your own person, other people do not need to dictate who you are!

I don't usually get on well with books that are part of celebrity book club picks but I liked the premise of this one and I enjoy books set around cruises so I thought why not? I think perhaps I should have trusted my judgement on this one and just given it a miss.



Its not that there is anything particularly bad about this book it just didn't live up to my expectations and it wasn't that memorable for me. I really like the fact that the main character, the matriarch of the family in this one is older and I think that more books are pushing the boundaries with the ages of their protagonists but more could definitely have been done with this and I didn't really find myself sympathizing with the character.



I found myself liking Cord as a character and I would have loved to have seen more of him in the book. I really found it hard the way they had the characters interacting, or not interacting as the case may be and I could think of a few ways that Cord could have been added to storylines involving Charlotte, Regan or Lee that would have added a bit more tension or even comedy.



Some of the descriptions of places the ship docks in this book really were beautiful, right down to the table cloths the food and drink is laid out on. So if you're used to cruising and can't right now, this might be a bit of an adventure for you! I did this one on audiobook and I have to say the narration was very good and it was clear which character we were dealing with at each moment.



This one wasn't for me and so I think I'll stay away from book club picks in the future!

I love the concept; a dysfunctional family go on holiday together to try and reconnect but longheld secrets are relieved and drama ensues.

Sounded interesting to me, and the blurb and cover gave me the impression it would be a light and entertaining read with some heart. However the tone of the book was very different.

The writing was easy to consume and the characters were complex, dealing with some serious baggage but I found it a struggle to care. I didn't feel there was any resolution or growing arc to the characters, so it just felt like a story about whiny dislikeable characters.

What a tasty treat this story was. I consumed it quickly and greedily, as if it were a delicious sugar glazed doughnut. I fell in love very quickly with Charlotte, a 71-year-old widow and mother of three - equally as poised and proper on the outside as she is wild and hungry with desire on the inside. Her witty and often sordid inner monologue had me off guard and laughing throughout the whole book.⠀
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Charlotte wins a competition to go on a Mediterrean cruise after submitting a saucy account of losing her virginity to a famous painter at the age of sixteen. Her children are grown up, as well as having grown apart and are now suddenly thrust together and forced to be in each others pockets with no escape.

The Jetsetters is written in short and snappy chapters, and the story is told from the perspective of all 4 characters, which kept it interesting and the voice varied. It was so easy and fun to read but at the same time wasn’t afraid to explore the darker nature of family relationships and personal inner turmoil.⠀
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A great read!⠀
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I was lucky enough to get a copy of this through @netgalley and @penguinukbooks, thank you!⠀

I didn't really connect with this book as personally the characters annoyed me and it was all a bit one dimensional. It is a story of a very dysfunctional family with lots of secrets and issues thrown together on a cruise around the Med. The description of the luxury cruise together with shore leave excursions only underlined why I'd never entertain going on one. This might appeal to some readers which is why I've given it a maybe but not for me,

This is a Reece Witherspoon book choice, with a focus on a dysfunctional family. Charlotte, the matriarch, a lonely widow who has just lost her best friend, wins a cruise holiday in a writing competition. In an attempt to emulate precious childhood memories, she invites her three adult children to accompany her.
Each character has problems to face up to and challenges to overcome – the first being in close proximity with each other for the first time in many years/
I enjoyed the description of the European cruise, the cities and ports, but found the characters hard to empathise with and so the story did not engage me fully.
A nice read.

Charlotte loses best friend Minnie to old age and feels life is slipping her by after a rocky childhood and marriage empty of love and ending tragically suddenly.



Charlotte's son Cord is an alcoholic as he deals with being a closeted gay though happily engaged to his love, Giovanni but fearful of his family judging him.



Charlotte's daughter's, Lee a failed actress heading home with a huge life changing secret and failed relationship and Regan a mother wanting to break free of her marriage by setting it up to fail and allow her to break free to be happy.



All they want is to get away but not necessarily together however in coming together their lives come apart and their jigsaw pieces of their lives might just fix into more positive futures with any luck...



This was a great summer read whilst we await the heat to arrive and we can't travel either right now! Referred plenty of drama though I did find the odd chapter ending left roots planted for scenes ahead which didn't materialise so I may have just thought too deeply into those but it doesn't matter as plenty else happens! I liked the aspect of a broken family falling apart to them come back together eventually and try to get on better for the future after realising a few home truths!



Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Despite all the characters being unlikeable, this very dysfunctional family has you rooting for a happy ending. The descriptions of the various Mediterranean ports are beautifully evocative; you can almost smell and taste the air.

Well, I had no idea what I was getting into, since for some reason I hadn't read the synopsis, but I thought It would be a funny or sweet contemporary book, possibly because of the beautiful cover. Instead, I read a nice story about complicated family dynamics. It's a story about a widower that goes on a cruise, that she won in a writing competition, with her three grown up children.
I have to say that the family is very dysfunctional, everyone has struggles and keeps secrets and I felt like everything could have been explored deeper... I didn't fall in love with the book, mainly because I didn't really liked the setting and the ending didn't satisfy me, but in general it was good.

ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward

This book was a slow starter but I warmed to the story as it developed. It's about the damage an alcoholic, depressive father can wreak in creating a hopelessly dysfunctional family and it binds the life stories of the mother, Charlotte, and her three children, Lee, Cord and Regan together and then, finally, brings them to some sort of closure through, of all things, a Mediterranean family cruise! There's a reference to King Lear in there somewhere!

The stories of each of the children are revealed in separate chapters and flashbacks and, once they are on the cruise, in the interactions between them. All of them are damaged in their own ways and struggling to make sense of their lives. Charlotte is no better, maintaining any number of façades while secretly hoping for some rough exciting romance.

That's typical of the problems all of them have, being quite simply their own worst enemies and it is the cruise which exposes this but also allows them to begin to mend. The device of the cruise is a bit clumsy as is the way it is introduced but it means we get a bit of a nice travelogue alongside the narrative as well as an insight into the cruising lifestyle. Hopefully, it also allowed the author to have a nice holiday set against her tax bill!

In the end, everything is resolved. Charlotte finds a man, Regan dumps one, Cord owns up that he needs one and Lee gets a part in a reality TV show. There's a bit of a sense here of a writer going through the motions to wrap it all up and you need a bit of willing suspension of disbelief but it is more cheerful than King Lear!

All in all, it's a good read for the beach (or a cruise) with some interesting characters and it never goes too deep to make you feel anxious!

A funny yet insightful book about family, growing older, and the need to be loved and fulfilled. An American family (a widowed Mum in her 70's, and her three grown up children) go on a cruise after Charlotte (the Mum) wins it in a writing competition. The ship and it's various Mediterranean calling points, becomes the background to the family's story. I really liked all of the characters and the sensitive descriptions of their 'back stories' and the impact of their early lives on the people they now are. Although long dead, the alcoholic father/husband is very much with them on the cruise, which brings depth and substance to the story.
This would make a good summer read and I would recommend it to men and women of all ages.
Thank you to the author, publisher and #NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

A really unique triumph of a book! Exploring a complicated family dynamic, full of individual struggles, mental health and familial love, The Jetsetters is about a family who love each other so much, but don't really know how to relate to each other anymore.

After winning a competition for a cruise, an elderly mother and her adult children go on a journey through europe, but also through their individual histories and traumas.

This was just incredibly beautifully written and I would recommend it.