Elin Hilderbrand is back, and boy, is she better than ever! After a couple summers of "enjoyable, but can take it or leave it" novels, Elin has rebounded in a big way with her latest. Hollis Shaw is a surgeon's wife and a popular food blogger. On the surface, everything looks picture-perfect. However, things are never as perfect as they seem. Hollis' teenage daughter has become surly and distant, and Hollis' marriage to Matthew is slowly crumbling. When a terrible accident changes Hollis' life forever, she finds herself largely alone and struggling.

Enter "The Five-Star Weekend." Hollis hears about this idea, and decides to implement the idea in her own life. She invites four good friends (her "stars") from different phases of her life to join her for a long weekend on Nantucket. Hollis eagerly invites friends from childhood, college, and motherhood to join her. She struggles with finding the perfect 4th woman.....until she remembers Gigi. Gigi is a newer friend that Hollis has recently started chatting with. The only problem? She is one of Hollis' Instagram followers, and Hollis has never actually met her. While the idea seems crazy, Hollis extends the invite, and Gigi accepts.

The weekend begins.....and so does the drama. On top of issues and secrets with the ladies, Hollis' childhood love, Jack, re-enters the picture. Over the course of the weekend, the secrets are slowly unfolded....until the biggest secret of all is revealed.....one that has the potential to change Hollis' past, present, and future.

This book had everything for me. It was heartwarming, fun, breezy, but also oddly deep. The themes ranged from self-acceptance to unconditional love and forgiveness, and I was so disappointed when the novel ended. This was truly a "Five-Star Read" for me!

This is one of my favorite authors and this book is perfect for any summer read. It had a little bit of a slow start and may be a better read for an older audience that can better relate to the story but it was still well done.

This is one of my favorite Elin Hilderbrand books that I've read lately. I wish I had read it during a time when life wasn't so crazy, so I could sit down and read a lot at once. That said, I still loved it. The writing was fantastic, the premise was unique, I liked how different all of the "stars" were, and of course the Nantucket setting was perfect as always. This was the perfect summer read but also had great depth.

This was not my favorite of the author’s. The main character was very unlikeable and that made it hard to get through the book.

Great read for a beach day! The story is entertaining, written so that you can see the characters and feel their emotions. The main point of the story is friendships and reconciliation. Recommend.

Loved, loved, loved! A truly captivating feel-good story about friendship. I love a good friendship trope and this book did not disappoint. It’s not summer until you’ve read an Elin Hilderbrand book and this one won’t let you down. After Hollis’ husband dies suddenly and tragically, Hollis gathers four of her friends for a weekend on Nantucket. Each woman comes with baggage and secrets, but they all leave the weekend forever changed. I loved each of the women’s characters and found myself rooting for them in their own ways. Plus, the beachy setting made this a fantastic summer read.

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand is an entertaining story about long-lasting friendships. I have to say, I think my favorite of hers is actually The Five-Star Weekend. I loved the concept and I think there are some interesting dynamics as well. After all, a lot of women can relate to friendships evolving as we all get older.

It’s funny when I describing this story to my husband, I called it a bachelorette party idea for 50-year-olds. But I kept thinking how bachelorette parties do bring people from all eras of your life together. But once you’re past that time period in your life, there’s not much of an opportunity to have a big girls’ weekend filled with people from various eras.

So the Five-Star Weekend idea is very compelling! It had me thinking about who I would invite. I love the concept and it might be something to do one day for sure.

Overall, I really enjoyed the novel and learning about Hollis’ friendships. We read the perspectives from all the women, including her daughter, and I liked that multi-narrative approach.

I love Elin Hildebrand and I loved this book. The premise is one woman selecting 4 friends from various periods of her life to come together for one fabulous weekend. As always, Hildebrand makes Nantucket come alive. I love to read with google maps next to me so I can look up all the places mentioned. It really helps to put me in the setting. The characters were complex and the romance was secondary to the stories of friendship. I really loved that aspect. If you love Hildebrand, you will love this one.

Elin Hilderbrand is an "auto-read" author for me so I am excited to review the book for NetGalley. After Hollis's husband dies, she is left to confront the ups and downs of her relationship with him, but also with her daughter and others around her. She decides to plan a five star weekend in Nantucket and invite friends from different times in her life to spend the weekend with her. And she hopes her daughter will come and film the weekend. I loved the idea of mingling friends from different parts of your life that may know you in different ways. And that certainly was the case for Hollis. The book was an insightful story about the friendships that women have and how they are helpful and at times hurtful. I loved reading the book and would highly suggest this book that left me thinking who would be my five star weekend attendies?

Yet another entertaining beach read by Elin Hilderbrand! The Five-Star Weekend is a book about friendship, family, love, loyalty, secrets, and betrayal.

When 4 women gather on Nantucket for the Five-Star Weekend planned by Hollis Shaw, surprises abound. Messy, wild, and yes, altogether fun, this was a fun summer read by the master of beach reads.
3.75 Stars

Thank you to Little Brown and Company for the arc courtesy of NetGalley.

I'm not sure how Elin Hilderbrand does it, but she took the most annoying character(s), and the most shallow and entitled storyline, and turned it into a book I ended up liking more than I ever imagined I could. Within the first few pages, I was convinced this was going to be my first 1 or 2-star Hilderbrand review, which actually kind of upset me, because I really do enjoy her books. Hollis Shaw was simply horrible - a spoiled, self-centered "influencer" who thinks the world revolves around her and everyone needs to know her opinion on everything. She even turns her husband's death into a "look at me" event. But by the end of the story, while I can't say I ended up liking Hollis, I at least understood her a bit better, and managed to find some sympathy for her. The rest of the characters were a bit all over the map for me - I went back and forth between liking and hating all of them. But again, as the story progressed, I warmed up to the group in general.

This is not one of Hilderbrand's best, but I give her kudos for transforming this book from one I hated to one I was able to tolerate.

Elin's books are equal parts Summer and Comfort to me. I save up her stories and read them on repeat! Her writing is beautiful and makes stories come alive through her excellently crafted plots as well as her character development. Whether you are a fan of hers or not, her stories are memorable and relatable as well as entertaining! I loved this story and have recommended it to several others who have equally enjoyed it! I definitely recommend her books in general, but this one in particular!

Give me ALL the Elin Hildebrand books! I was sad to see she was retiring from writing next summer! This book has a fun concept. After the main character's husband dies, she decides to invite her best friends from different phases of her life to a social media documented gourmet weekend getaway. All the craziness ensues. I loved the foodie part of this book and wanted the recipes to all the dishes. I also really liked the mother/adult daughter relationship in this story. The ending is very typical Hildebrand - It left me with a smile and an even stronger desire to go to Nantucket.

Thanks to #netgalley for the ARC
#goodreads

For some reason, the first 10% of this took me a month to read — I mostly kept getting called away by the tyranny of library holds. But then I read the other 90% in one evening, and thoroughly enjoyed it. As always, Hilderbrand’s books are juicy summer fun — and this one was even more Nantuckety and drama-filled than usual!

It would not be summer for me without falling in love with a new Elin Hilderbrand book!

Synopsis:
Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’s perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper.
So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend”—one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife—she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.
The husband of Hollis’s childhood friend Tatum arranges for Hollis’s first love, Jack Finigan, to spend time with them, stirring up old feelings. Meanwhile, Tatum is forced to play nice with abrasive and elitist Dru-Ann, Hollis’s best friend from UNC Chapel Hill. Dru-Ann’s career as a prominent Chicago sports agent is on the line after her comments about a client’s mental health issues are misconstrued online. Brooke, Hollis’s friend from their thirties, has just discovered that her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. Again! And then there’s Gigi, a stranger to everyone (including Hollis) who reached out to Hollis through her blog. Gigi embodies an unusual grace and, as it hap- pens, has many secrets.

I felt like this one was a bit hard to get into because it is full of different women with different stories that don't seem to overlap much. I felt like each woman could have had their own book and it may have been better.
Overall, It was a good one, but it just didn't give that beach read magic that I usually can expect from an Elin Hilderbrand summer read.

It’s not summer without Elin Hilderbrand! I specifically saved this book to read on my vacation to Cape Cod. And I took my mom to meet Elin in person back in June and she was just so nice and lovely. We had the color jade green to wear!

Hollis has a picture perfect life: a handsome doctor husband, one college age daughter, a cute pooch, and a dream house in Nantucket. Her blog, Hungry with Hollis, has gone viral and she loves to party prep and cook for her website. But all it flipped over when her husband is killed in a car accident just before Christmas. She lost her own mother very young and now her husband too.

She decides to host a 5 star weekend with 5 of her best friends from her life to help cheer her up. Tatum is her oldest friend, but she feels out of place among these rich women. Dru-Ann is her college friend going through a tough career moment, Brooke is her best mom friend, who tried hard to fit in and is hiding a secret about her husband, and lastly, is Gigi, a friend she has never met in person, but has talked many times with and met through her blog. Gigi is the random wild card who brings a fresh energy to the weekend.

Hollis asks her documentary filmmaker daughter, Caroline to film her friends weekend, but she also hopes it reconnects their relationship. The local townspeople are excited to see the quintet out on the town in their coordinating colors. I love all the descriptions of their outfits and the food. I have been to Nantucket a few times and Elin had painted the island exactly like I remember.

I really enjoyed this book and all its secrets. It was the perfect book to read in Cape Cod.

The Five Star Weekend is about Hollis Shaw, famous online foodie, and her plans for a five star weekend. Hollis invites one friend from each stage of her life for a girls weekend. She’s hoping this will be fun for everyone, and healing for her since her husband died in a car accident a few months before. Little does she know, this will be a weekend of a little drama, lots of healing from the past, and so many different things her friends are going through. She has a full schedule and menu planned for the weekend, and her followers can’t wait to hear all about it. Hollis also hires her daughter Caroline to film the weekend and make a short film for them. The weekend is interesting in many ways. Hollis’s friends become friends, she finds out one of them has betrayed her, and she learn just how good of friends she has had throughout life.

I really liked The Five-Star Weekend. The background of Hollis and her friends was interesting and made each of the women more real. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

Elin Hilderbrand brings back her signature Island-style writing and we're treated to a few cameos from several characters from previous novels (you won't need to have read any to enjoy this one). The story is written in a carefree, gossipy way that lures you in and doesn't let go until literally the very last page.

The character growth in this book is HUGE. Each of the "stars" has personal drama that we follow and their development has you cheering for them the whole way. There's also enough conflict between the women to keep the story moving along and never, ever dull.

Verdict: The Five-Star Weekend gets Five Stars from me!

Elin Hilderbrand never disappoints. This book is full of Nantucket sights, sounds, and amazing food descriptions. It was all I could not to rush out to find a morning bun to devour. The whole idea of a Five Star Weekend is fascinating and would be just as much fun in real life as it was to read about one.

Another home run by Elin Hildebrand! Queen of the emotionally charged beach read, this is a story of a woman who invites 4 friends from completely different stages of her life to spend a weekend with her on Nantucket in her mansion. Obviously this turns into a trip full of personality clashes, some truly shocking secrets, and women discovering things about themselves as they face challenges head on. There is an element of romance, but not enough that it impedes on the central themes of friendship and women.