This is a dark controversial read, but I enjoyed it. As much as one can say they enjoyed this one. there are multiple content warnings for this one, but I appreciate that it’s being advertised tastefully that way too. It had the perfect amount of tension and suspense. It did take a little bit to get going at the beginning, but once you reach a certain point, it’s impossible to put down. The cover is gorgeous!

The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop is truly a captivating debut (as another reviewer mentioned below) and I couldn’t agree more.
Although I wasn’t fully expecting to read what I read, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from my Kindle once I started.
This was one of those books I couldn’t put down and believe me, that is rare for me.
While it was hard to read some of what the character went through the story was still a gripping read.
Emotional, full of tension and characters who really opened my heart.
Katie Bishop is an amazing storyteller and after reading this book I’m excited for her next one.
Truly a five star read.

This story does have trigger warnings: mentions of suicide, drugs, alcohol and sexual abuse.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank You NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

4.25 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today.


Somewhat ripped from the headlines, think Jeffrey Epstein and Ghillane Maxwell, The Girls of Summer forces us to look at young girls and how easily swayed they can be by wealth, privilege, and attention.

Rachel and her lifetime best friend Caroline decide to spend the summer traveling. It’s not quite their gap year, they still have one year left before that, but off they go to see the Greek Isles. Rachel picks their next stop, a more remote and isolated island. They befriend, moreso Caroline befriends, several young women on the boat over. Those girls know of a place that will hire girls to tend bar and also gives them housing. Caroline & Rachel don’t initially go to work at the bar, nor move into the house. One night at the bar, Rachel meets Alistair, a handsome man, who invites her to come up to his employer’s house for a party. This is a party that will alter Rachel’s life for years to come.

Only Henry Taylor’s parties, while legendary, are also horribly toxic. As the girls get more and more drawn into this dark world of parties and men, some of them won’t be able to handle the consequences. And Rachel, who came to this island still so naive, has shaped in her mind a reality that doesn’t even exist.

Fast forward to Rachel 15 years later. Her husband Tom suggests they visit that island that shaped Rachel’s young adulthood. When Rachel runs into Helena, another of the girls from that summer, who now owns their old bar, it is a shock. Helena has never left the island. And Alistair, well, Helena has kept in touch with him. Rachel immediately wants to get in touch with Alistair after all these years. She’s never stopped being in love with him, after all.

This novel unfolds in a slow, steady pace, just like the waves on the ocean that the girls inhabit. Alternating with chapters in present day and the past, Bishop gradually shows us how Rachel gets sucked into this life. Very much a topic that has been front and center for quite a few years now. What is the difference between consensual sex and rape? Do young women have the bandwidth to even process the difference? While there are absolutely topics here that are hard to read, it is amazing to see the transformation of Rachel’s thinking over time.

Truly recommend.

When Rachel decides to travel with her friend Caroline, she never imagines finding a place where she’s so comfortable that she just wants to stay and put down roots. At 17, the world seems like it’s hers and hers alone, and when they stumble upon a Green island where there’s work at the bar and glamorous parties with hard to snag invites, she finds that she’s entranced by the idea of staying. And then she falls in love with a much older man who she works for. But, things aren’t always what they seem. Were the wild parties just parties? Or were they something more? Told between then and now, Rachel finds herself on the island once more and begins to wonder if she missed something back in the summer she was 17.

""That place has been my whole life. Everything I thought I knew about myself was constructed in those few months I spent within touching distance of the sea. Everything I am is because Alistair loved me."

Rachel has been in love with Alistair for fifteen years. Even though she's now married to someone else. Even though she was a teenager when they met. Even though he is twenty years older than her.

Rachel and Alistair's summer love affair on a remote, sun-trapped Greek island has consumed her since she was seventeen, obliterating everything in its wake. But as Rachel becomes increasingly obsessed with reliving the events of so long ago, she reconnects with the other girls who were similarly drawn to life on the island, where the nights were long, the alcohol was free-flowing and everyone acted in ways they never would at home. And as she does so, dark and deeply suppressed secrets about her first love affair begin to rise to the surface, as well as the truth about her time working for an enigmatic and wealthy man, who controlled so much more than she could have ever realized.

Joining a post #MeToo discourse, The Girls of Summer grapples with themes of power, sex, and consent, as it explores the complicated nature of memory and trauma - and what it takes to reframe, and reclaim, your own story."

Because sometimes what you thought was a fairy tale really was a nightmare.

When Rachel was a teen, she spent time on a Greek island working in a bar and having a summer romance with Alistair. Now that Rachel is older and married to Tom, she often thinks back to that summer and her relationship to the point of obsessing about it. On a trip back to the island with Tom, she reconnects with Helena, one of the girls she worked with many years ago in the bar. Helena keeps in contact with Alistair and passes his phone number on to Rachel.

As she begins an affair with Alistair, her already weakened marriage starts to crumble. Along with this and reconnecting with Helena, dark memories of that long, lost summer start to resurface, and Rachel realizes she was part of something traumatic and deceitful.

Told in alternating timelines, the reader slowly realizes that one of the characters is similar to Jeffrey Epstein, but the author handles it very carefully. Rachel, the main character, is very naïve in both timelines, which was a little frustrating.

*Will post to Instagram on 5/23/2023

I loved the back and forth between present time and the teenage summer of the main character and her friends. That summer love and pretending any possible red flags in a relationship are known all too well to most woman remembering their teenage boyfriends. I was happy that the characters finally got redemption against at least one of their attackers, although they didn’t feel like he got all that he should, justice was served. The twist of Helena and Rachel being pregnant at the same time by Alistair was unexpected but made the story blend the characters together nicely. The premise of this story is I’m sure relatable to some readers in one way or another. Although maybe not in the sense of having a predator as a lover, but being so blinded by love that all other things seem unthinkable.

Rachel and her best friend Caroline are off for a summer vacation in Greece. Both girls are in their junior and senior years of high school. Not even eighteen, but they decided to go on a trip of lifetime exploring the Greek archipelago, To save money, they stayed in hostels, sharing rooms with other girls their age. The island they were on was one big party scene with bars that didn’t bother to check ID. It was a dream come true — untethered by watchful parents, getting drunk, and partying till all hours of the morning.

It was all fun and games and even better when Rachel met Alistair, a charismatic businessman. Alistair was twenty years older than Rachel, but Rachel didn’t care. Unlike boys her age, Alistair had a distinctive finesse about him. He made Rachel feel special… In fact, Alistair made all the girls feel special… A gift that Alistair used to his advantage. And one that would change the course of Rachel’s life forever.

The Girls of Summer is a slow atmospheric read. The novel isn’t for everyone. Especially if you’re a reader that loves thrills, excitement and mystery.

The story unfolds over dual timelines with Rachel as the MC. This method of storytelling really works well for this particular novel. However, I found that I had to read between the lines to get the gist of the story. The plot isn’t clear cut, and it isn’t until past the 48% point that I slowly began to understand what was happening. Even so, the novel was pretty bland. And with a lackluster finale, it garnered just two okay stars from me.

I received a digital ARC from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley. The review herein is completely my own and contains my honest thoughts and opinions.

This is not a happy comfortable summer read. This is about a deeply unhappy woman who cannot stop obsessing over a affair she had when she was 17. it affects her marriage and everything in her life. This book touches on some darkness and abuse told in her own dual timeline. I found her hard to believe as her charcter is obsessive and unlikable. She bears no responsiblity for herself. There is much here that is upsetting to the reader and expecially to victims.

Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley for the opportunity.

I'm torn about how I feel in regards to <u> The Girls of Summer</u>. On the one hand, I absolutely understand the need to tell these #metoo stories, but I've read a few too many of them lately and it's starting to make my brain hurt. Rachel meets Alistair on an island when she is seventeen. He's... much older. They begin this affair that stays with Rachel for the rest of her life, even once she grows up and gets married to someone who isn't Alistair. She runs into an old friend of hers from that summer at the beginning of the book, and she's shocked to find that her friends didn't think Alistair was as charming as she did- does? The story is told in flashbacks between then and now, which I liked. I felt badly for Rachel then. And while I wanted to feel badly for her now because it's evident what trauma can do to a person, even if they don't recognize it as such at the time, it was almost impossible to not want to just shake her! That's what makes books like this one so important though. Things are rarely black and white, and <u>The Girls of Summer</u> does a good job of reminding us of that.

A heavy read that touches on many important and tough topics, The Girls of Summer unfolds in a heartbreaking manner that isn't for the faint of heart. ⁠
Alternating between present day and years before, this book follows Rachel as she recounts a fateful summer when she was 17 and the impact it has on her current marriage. What unfolds is a story of manipulation, betrayal, heartbreak, and how as an adult we try to reconcile the decisions and naiveness we have as teenagers. ⁠
For readers of My Dark Vanessa, this one is reminiscent in age and emotions, but it's these tough reads that are important and not to be shied away from.

This book is somewhat difficult to review. It centers around a sensitive issue, which is fairly obvious early on but never really spelled out until near the end. I was intrigued from the start, but the longer it went on, the more frustrated I got and my interest waned. I felt a lot of sympathy and grace for Then-Rachel. She was young, naive, and desperate for the feeling of belonging. Essentially, she was the perfect target for what she found herself wrapped up in. It’s heartbreaking to imagine that young girl being so in over her head in a situation she can’t recognize. Now-Rachel is where my issues came in. The way she treated her husband was awful, and the choices she made were hard to accept. Watching her slip back into a seventeen/eighteen-year-old frame of mind without the perspective of adulthood was a struggle. Sadly, it’s probably highly realistic of someone who had endured a trauma that they haven’t realized or accepted yet. Even recognizing that, the book lagged in the Now chapters for me and made it challenging to get through. Even Now-Rachel’s choices in the end are questionable to me as to whether she thought it was genuinely the right choice or if it was revenge motivated. It was the right move, but her motivations read somewhat questionable to me. I have a lot of conflicted feelings on this book, so regardless of my ultimate overall enjoyment, the writing was well done and thought provoking.

I enjoyed this book for the most part, and liked the dual-timelines. However, found myself getting more and more frustrated with the main character though, as I felt she was just too naive to be oblivious to all of the things that went on both when she was 17, then later throughout her adult life as she looked back on that time. The book had a lot of potential, but really drug on at the end without any major twists or excitement. And to top that off, I didn't get a sense at all of what the main character's life would be like by the end. Very unsatisfying ending. Trigger warnings: trafficking, rape, abortion.

The cover is 5 stars.

The beginning through about 1/3 of the way through the book was amazing. Totally binged and hooked me. Then I just lost interest. It never held my attention past this point.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the copy of The Girls Of Summer by Katie Bishop. From the title you would think this is a beach book, but you couldn't be more wrong. This is an intense book about alcohol, drugs and abuse, so don’t expect a light read. Rachel is vacationing on a Greek Island when she falls in love with Alistair who is 20 years older than she is. Fast forward to almost 20 years later and Rachel is married to Tom. She has never forgotten Alistair and jumps at the chance to see him again.
I found it implausible that Rachel didn’t realize what was happening on the island. We ‘saw’ what was going on through her POV and it seemed pretty obvious. She was either really naive or in denial. Then as an adult she deceives her husband which made her a really unsympathetic character. The other ‘girls’ felt really interchangeable, any island could have been anywhere because I never felt a Greek vibe. This was not the book for me, but if you’re interested in a #MeToo reckoning, it might be the book for you!

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin's Press & Katie Bishop for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book at first. It pulled me in right away and I was really interested in the characters and her story, .but as the book went on it didn't hold my attention quite as much as before but I still wanted to find out what happened and did enjoy this book and I'm glad I stuck with it. I also feel like this is one of those books that you will think about long after you finish it.

3.5 stars for me but rounded up to 4.

This was a powerful story about girls who are 'coming of age', feeling free and powerful, yet have so much to learn about the world. It touches on dirty power, trying to understand right from wrong even if you feel like you are in control, and gives insight to the inner narrative of victims we read about too often in the news. Very Epistein-ish and tragic and even though I felt sick reading about the actions of these powerful men, I enjoyed the story all the same.

While it took me a little longer than I had initially expected to get into this one, I am so glad that I pushed through! I loved the setting and the ominous tone throughout the book. The dual timelines were done really well.

Initially I was really sucked into this book. The scenes were outstanding and I was intrigued by the then/now timelines. The characters were a little annoying but mostly they were young and stupid and it was forgivable.

However, by the time I was 50% into the book I began to lose interest. The main character was insufferable and hard to connect with, and I felt like everyone in the book was in on some secret except me. I felt annoyed and left out by all the characters. I was halfway in and had learned almost nothing!

From there the book was just hard to get into. I wasn’t interesting anymore. The ending did pick up, but by that point I was skimming a lot of the chapters just to get to the end and find out what happened.

I loved this book so much! I really didn’t know what it was about when I started reading it, but I quickly was obsessed! The characters are well developed, and I couldn’t help but love them all!