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.

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First off- thank you so much to NetGalley & St.Martin's Press for my gifted copies of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I wanted to like this one so much more than I actually did.
First of all, I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere of this book. It's set in summertime in Greece, and it was definitely a weird cult-y environment, it did seem like all the girls there really looked out for one another and it became more of a sisterhood than anything. There were so many moments while reading this that I just wanted to reach through the book and give Rachel a hug. Save her from what was happening, because it directly impacted who she was as an adult.
The book is told in alternating timelines, Rachel and her time on the island, and then present-day Rachel as an adult, struggling through every adult relationship she's been in because of her past with Alistair. The fact that he didn't take any responsibility for his part in that, really irked me and had me livid during multiple parts of this book.
Overall, it's not the light beachy read that I feel like I've seen bookstagrammers market it as. It's much darker than that, and while the atmosp

What I liked:
Focused on me too

A bit of mystery

Women who worked together

What didn’t work for me:

MC did not mature at all

Overall, the book was ok and kept my interest. I was very disappointed that the MC was immature as an adult.

There was something about this book that just didn't quite click for me... And if I had to guess what it was it's that so much of this story just feels like it's coming out at the wrong time... Even I can admit that's not really a fair critique of the book.

It's told in two timelines, one set in the past where our main character, Rachel, is on holiday with her friend and gets pulled under the spell of a man a decade older than her and then Rachel when she's roughly a decade later back on the island with her husband. It's the way that the book is so short and bounces between these two points in time and the moments in each timeline that added to this mostly feeling like an incomplete thought. In the past the reader can clearly sense that Rachel is being abused in some way, but there's also a larger threat looming. Then in the present we see Rachel and her husband having troubles in their marriage and Rachel returning to the man that was clearly trafficking her in her youth. So in terms of making the reader feel ill at ease, the book succeeds...

The biggest issue is that the culmination of the novel feels very been there before and the journey to get to the conclusion already wasn't the smoothest. In the end it's not so much that the book is bad necessarily, but that it's forgettable, there's no way to sever this book from a book that covers similar ground because the characters themselves are so bland and the way that the book is written doesn't feel distinctly its own.

The writing might be decent, but the third act is clearly rushed. So much of the narrative eventually becomes montages, flashes of scenes that feel half finished when compared to what the book spent the early runtime lingering on. In the end it's hard to recommend this, not because of the subject matter, but because even without reading it the odds are most readers will have already consumed this very story and there isn't anything more added to the conversation by having spent time with these characters.

Thank you to @netgalley and @Stmartinspress for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to @macmillian.audio for a free download of the audiobook.

I really wanted to like this book more. The mystery of a secret past was intriguing and who wouldn’t want to read about Greece. Older men taking advantage of younger, vulnerable women just didn’t play for me. Also, the threat of infidelity is not something that I enjoy.

Thanks to the audio, I did finish the book. I see lots of 4-5 star reviews, just not for me.

3 stars

#books #bookishlife #booklover #readingisfun #iowabookstagrammers #iowabookstagram #netgalley #stmartinspress #macmillianaudio #ltbreaderteam #thegirlsofsummer #katiebishop #smpinfluencers

I really enjoyed The Girls Of Summer. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting when I picked it up but still an overall good storyline and fun read! Visiting Greece has been on my bucket list. Who wouldn't want a love affair on a Greek Island. Thank you to St Martin's Press and NetGalley for this title.

I was immediately interested in the travel aspect of this book. It took a very interesting turn that I wasn't expecting. I loved learning about the characters and their relationships. I'd recommend this book to friends for sure. It was thrilling and engaging.

I am all about the dark reads and this one delivered. I have seen many readers comparing it to My Dark Vanessa which is a favorite of mine. A thought provoking read that I really enjoyed. I am looking forward to more from Katie Bishop.

I enjoyed this book and I could not put it down. I really enjoyed the characters and the writing was really well done. It made you want to keep reading.

“The weight of words can be astounding sometimes. You can never really know the power they have, how long they will follow you for.”

“You can be whoever you like when nobody is looking at you particularly closely.”

The Girls of Summer, told in dual timelines, Then and Now, follows Rachel, who has been in love with Alistair for 15 years -- even though he's twenty years older than her, even though they they were only together for one sun-drenched summer on a remote Greek island, even though she's now married to someone else. As she becomes increasingly obsessed with the events from that summer, she reconnects with the other women who were there, and the dark secrets about what really happened with Alistair and the enigmatic and wealthy man who employed them all.

3.5 stars rounded up! I went into this debut novel expecting a beachy read..but it was NOT that. This book has a heavy and dark subject matter. It is a slow burn and I’ll admit I was a little skeptical for about the first 1/3 of the book because I wasn’t sure where the storyline was going. But once it took off it was quite a ride! I was feeling some My Dark Vanessa vibes, which is one of my favorite books ever.

If you have ever wondered how young girls are groomed, how men sometimes use their power to manipulate, and how memory can skew the truth…read this book. I listened to most of this book on audio and really enjoyed it. The narrator has a dreamy accent which just added to the enjoyment of the story for me.

Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, St Martins Press, and the author for the ARC and ALC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book! It was an interesting story with a few extra layers, told between the present day and 15 years prior from the point of view of the main character Rachel who summers in Greece at the end of high school and subsequently from what happened that summer, has some trauma and denial. It was a commentary of #metoo as well.

Rachel is in her thirties, married and coasting along in her mid-life. Her and her husband visit an island in Greece that has significance to her past. She's still feels the connection to a relationship that keeps its claws embedded long after the real connection has gone. What’s different is that Rachel’s big romance began when she was a seventeen-year-old on a Greek island whilst on a holiday with her friend, and it was with a thirty-something male who is involved in running a local bar. It all came to a sudden end.
This is troubling and thought-provoking story of manipulation, teen girls, and abuse. The story can make you uncomfortable; it can feel problematic. But it's an important read and very well written.

Rachel vacationed on a small Greek island in her youth and what happened there is reaching forward 15 years to her “happily” married present. This one was definitely a twist on a modern day Me Too movement throwing it back to what happened to Rachel and other girls on the island.

I really liked a lot of this storyline, but Rachel did annoy me with some of her character flaws (which I won’t spoil for readers). Overall, I thought it was a solidly good read.

Rachel is in her mid-30's now, employed and married. Her husband is stable and sweet and she likes the life she's built. But a vacation she takes to an island she hasn't been back to in over 10 years sends her stable life tipping because she bumps in to a girl she knew so long ago. The summer she was 17 and freshly turns 18, she's backpacking with a friend and she bumps in to a group of girls. She meets an older man that introduces her to the world of money, drinking and travel.

This story is a bit dark. The age gap of the MC and the man she's seeing is eye-watering. The timeframe jumps between two - the Then and Now. The then being 18 year old Rachel and friends. The Now being adult Rachel, as her life tailspins as she tries to reach Alistair again, after all this time.

The creep factor jumps off the page. The Then chapters are just full of foreboding and are hard to read at times. Knowing this is a book written during the lockdown and Pandemic feels fitting, that feeling of isolation is a constant undercurrent. There's SA in this book, so tread lightly and make sure to check Trigger Warnings so you know what this story holds. I like how it concluded but I found the MC really frustrating at times. I tried to see her POV, her obsession and her struggle but I had a tough time really getting to know her and understand the why. I did find the story compelling and heartbreaking.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

I hate admitting this but I wasn't able to connect with this one as much as I hoped.  Even though I didn't connect, I still felt it was a well thought out novel on grooming and the way different people experience trauma and their perspectives on memories.

This book did not disappoint. It was well written and a compelling read. I almost read the entire book in one sitting - I couldn’t put it down. Congratulations Katie on a fabulous debut

DNF @ 37%.

Unfortunately, I just could not get into this one. It felt very repetitive and I just didn’t like the MC very much.
I really wanted to like it because I’ve heard some great things from friends that have read it but it’s turned out to not be for me.

Thank you so much St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for honest thoughts.

Interesting read. At times it moved a little slow but it starts with a group of girls on holiday and one decides to stay in Greece a bit longer. During her stay she is entangled in a world she knows nothing about and 20 years later it’s all catching up to her and seeing things from a different perspective.

***Trigger Warnings***
Sexual assault, sex trafficking, rape, suicide, drug/alcohol use, abortion
While these are not addressed in a descript or graphic manner, they are a large part of this story. Please be aware before you start this book.

Seventeen year old Rachel escapes to a Greek island for vacation with her friend. While she is there, she meets some other girls who are working for Alistair, a handsome man in his 30's. Rachel is immediately taken with Alistair, and finds herself thinking about him and doing what she can to continuously be invited to these VIP-like parties he is hosting. As Rachel becomes even more wrapped up in Alistair, the world around her and her friends is crashing hard and fast. By the end of the summer, nothing is as it seemed in the beginning, and the girls are all faced with hard decisions and consequences as they maneuver through their new realities. Told in alternating timelines of "then" and "now," Rachel recounts her first love and starts to see in a new light the memories she has been holding on to for decades.

This was a challenging book for me to get through. The title makes it seem like it would be a light-hearted, airy, fun read, and this book is anything but that. The content of this book is heavy, and there are several trigger warnings that need to be associated with this title, so please be mindful of that before you start this one.

I did find the story okay overall, but I felt that the writing was repetitive and it is a definite slow burn type of book. It seemed to take a long time (60% or so) to get to the really meaty part of the book, and that was about when I decided I needed to know what would happen to these girls. I felt like there was too much daydreaming about Alistair and a potential future with him that it dragged the book down. That being said, I did like the alternating timelines, and was more invested in the "then" chapters than the "now" chapters.

I was interested in this book because I participated in a study abroad program to Spain when I was in college and I thought this might be something to reignite the feelings and experiences I had as a young lady alone in a foreign country. I am glad to say that my experience was not the same as Rachel's. In fact, I felt that Rachel was extremely naïve and irresponsible throughout this entire book, and I couldn't believe that she couldn't see what was happening right in front of her face. Maybe that's par for the course at seventeen, but even as an adult, I felt Rachel hadn't really matured at all. One of the biggest disconnects for me was the characters, as I didn't really care for any of them. Rachel actually made me want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and scream in her face "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

I am not one for liking the endings of books, and I can't say I liked this one either. I think some of the resolves for the problems were lackluster and a cop out. I also think this book was marketed as a "thriller" and it is definitely not that. This is more of an atmospheric drama than anything.

Overall, I gave this one 3 stars. The story was fine when it wasn't repetitive, and this is the author's debut, so I take that into consideration as well. I think the writing was good, aside from the repetition, though I can't be certain that it wasn't on purpose to demonstrate Rachel's obsession with Alistair. The heavy content did have me in my feelings at times, and that deserves some credit too.

Give this one a chance, just don't expect a thriller or light-hearted beach read. I think I didn't read the blurb of this one before I started reading, so maybe that was part of my issue in connecting to the story. I think I was expecting something different.

Rachel Evans is a young impressionable 17 year old girl who goes with her friend the Greece where she meets a man 20 years older than she, and right away I did not like him. Alistair Wright was so manipulative and anyone with any experience in life could see that things were heading the wrong direction. Rachel totally falls for him and is "in love" with Alistair and she is unable at her age to see what is truly going on. Alistair works for a wealthy man who throws parties where young girls drink with the men and more sinister things happen.

The story is told in alternating THEN and NOW chapters which works really well. 17 year old Rachel becomes 34 year old Rachel who is married and lies about serious things to her husband and others. She still has feelings for Alistair and simply cannot see what her friends try to tell her what happened back that summer. She is blind to the truth. But will she remain blind to all that happened or will she finally open her eyes?

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for a free audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion which I have given.

I wanted to like this more than I did.

The Girls of Summer follows Rachel, a 17 year old who has moved to a small island in Greece. She meets an older man a mysterious, even older, man. Rachel and several young girls that are also working on the island take up jobs working for these men, entertaining men during parties.

I expected a fun, maybe mysterious storyline that follows young girls having a wild summer in Greece. But this was more of a depressing tale on how older men with bad intentions take advantage of young, vulnerable women.

The story jumps between Rachel at 17, to Rachel as an older, married woman. I didn't actually like either Rachel.

However, I did read the entire book, so it couldn't have been that bad. I think I just kept expecting somethign to happen...

Thank you to #Netgalley and St. Martin's press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This did not impact my review.