I always look forward to a new Jennifer Weiner novel, and this one will surely be added to my list of favorites from her. Abby is 34 and doesn't feel like she's 'made it' in life. She's in a decent relationship but doesn't feel like her personal life or career is where she wants them to be. When her partner asks her to move in together, she needs to make a decision. She agrees to lead a 2-week bicycle trip through New York State to buy time. While on that trip, she has a chance to reconnect with a former one-night flame from two years earlier and begins to parse out what she wants in life.

I love Weiner's writing and how she balances the romance plots with heavier topics and themes. This one addresses body image, weight loss, and abortion. I appreciated her weaving in a few characters' plot lines on the bike trip. It gave the novel even more dimension and made it compulsively readable.

Another great Jennifer Weiner read! This was a sweet story about the connection between two seemingly unlikely individuals. The main character had a difficult childhood and self imagined due to her weight and did not value herself. Throughout the story, she learns more about herself, her handsome one-night stand and learns to love her self. I enjoyed this; it was a great summer read.

I really enjoyed this breezy romance, which follows plus-size Abby as she navigates figuring out what (and who) she wants while she leads a cycling trip across New York State. While this story definitely won't be for everyone (various issues are brought up throughout the story with certain viewpoints as the star), I did really like it.

The best aspect for me what the travel portion, covering a bike trip from NYC to Niagara Falls and the descriptions of scenery and small towns along the way. If more of the novel had been focused on that, plus her budding relationship with a cyclist on her trip, I would have probably been able to bump it up to five stars. I did get a bit annoyed by the constant flashbacks, but I did understand how they were necessary for the story.

A great summer/vacation read!

This is the perfect summer read. I was looking for a book with a relatable character, a story that enticed me to read more, and more than just a good read. I found all of these criteria in Jennifer Weiner's book, The Breakaway. The main character, Abby, is relatable as a women who is striving to embrace herself as she is, without feeling the need to change for anyone. She embarks on a journey as a leader for a bike tour, and as the tour progresses, she learns more about herself, and others, than she ever imagines. I loved the focus on relationships with oneself and others, as well as the meaningful storylines that addressed social issues. I would highly recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Abby is a cyclist who leads a biking trip and is reunited with a one night stand from 2 years ago. Their chemistry is undeniable, but he’s a good time compared to her boyfriend who is safe.

This book was such a fun read. I was rooting for Abby the entire time. There are heavy sub plots, such as body image, infidelity, abortion, but I thought it was well incorporated into the main story line.

This is my first Jennifer Weiner’s book to read and won’t be my last. Great read!!

What a delightful read! I loved the chemistry between Abby and Sebastian, and the sub plot of Abby’s relationship with her mom. I also really appreciated the body positive messaging throughout. Loved!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was such a great story I really enjoyed it, I loved Abby and Mark’s Story one of my favorite reads ever!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Abby loves cycling, and so when she is asked to lead her first group bike tour, she is excited, but a little nervous. Turns out she has reason to be nervous, since she recognizes one of the men in the group as a one-night stand she had over a year ago, and her mother joins the group at the last minute.

A good chunk of the book focuses on Abby & her own body image. Her parents sent her to ‘fat camp’ as a child, and while Abby has made significant healthy changes to her life, her mother continues to make judgements based on her daughter’s weight.

Her one-night stand man also becomes somewhat of a heartthrob on the trip. Which would be fine, except Abby has a committed boyfriend back home.

There are some timely (some might consider controversial) topics covered in this book. Wiener’s addition of this topic gave the book a more serious tone in many of the chapters and I thought it gave the story another avenue of characters to explore.

I enjoyed this book!! Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for this ARC. This book releases on August 29th. #booksbyashleynicole

This was an adorable and fun read. I enjoyed reading about all the relationships, new and old. Along with current issues and how they effect relationships. There were some nice scenic descriptions too. Overall, this book was delicious!

Oh, man. It pains me to write this as I am the biggest Jennifer Weiner fan. I have been reading her books for decades and always love them. I was so excited to get an ARC of this one, and it just did not work for me.

Positives:
The premise-put together a main character heroine who is trying to figure out her place in life and a lively cast of support characters for a 12-day bicycle trek through New York. And by the end shes does figure "it all" (her self image, her relationship, her mother issues, her career, her purpose, etc.) out. Probably my favorite part of the book.

Negatives:
The sub-plot felt heavy to me and was unexpected. I get why she wrote it, but it seemed a bit forced.
I thought the main love interest also felt forced
Lots of hot button topics thrown in and resolved very quickly

In the end there are probably enough themes hit upon here for most readers to resonate with, it was just a "miss" for me. I will continue to read all of her books!

As a fan of Jennifer Weiner’s other books like Good in Bed,Then Came You, and All Fall Down, I was worried this book wouldn’t live up to my own expectations but, I really enjoyed this book.

I did not read the synopsis before requesting this book on Netgalley. I just saw the cover and hit request, so I went into this book completely blind.

Abby Stern is in her mid 30’s, she has a job but not a career, a steady boyfriend who loves her, her bike, and friends who love her. Abby’s friend asks her to lead a 2 week bike trip up to Niagara Falls. When Abby meets the group she is leading she sees a familiar face in the crowd.

Two years earlier Abby is at a bachelorette party with her friends when she has an unforgettable night with a man named Sebastian.

While on the bike trip, Abby and Sebastian are able to reconnect two years after a memorable night together.

Overall I liked this book, I just felt it was a typical Jennifer Weiner title that sticks pretty closely to her usual themes of romance, mother/daughter relationships, and social issues. The characters were complex, relatable, and well written, but the attraction/romance didn't feel genuine to me.

I really loved the centrality of biking in this book. I found Abby to be a very likable character and was rooting for her and Sebastian. This was a fun, enjoyable read.

Rounded up from 4.5-ish

The concept/setting of the bike tour was great, and felt real real likely due to the author’s personal cycling.

The ancillary spoken four characters were a freaking hoot.

I liked Abby a lot and Sebastian’s arc was good

Loved this book even if a lot was jammed into it, some quite heavy topics but kept surface enough and resolved quickly/nicely (unrealistically sometimes too, but this is a novel, not the news) so they did not drag the book down. Despite some of the heavier themes, I ended this feeling happy like I just read a feel good book. Life is a ride.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review

This book grabbed my heart right away. Weiner’s passion for bike riding showed through the pages as Abby was asked to lead a group bike trip from New York to Niagara Falls. I felt like I was riding along with them through the group’s new sense of freedom and their self-discovery as they faced many different weather conditions on their ride. I love Abby's laid-back attitude and confidence in leading the team. Her relationship with Sebastian was sweet despite how they got there. I do not condone cheating, but I felt they belonged together, and the ending reconfirmed that. This book also incorporated heavy topics that are still hot today. It is not an easy task to write controversial topics in a book that not all readers will like, but I felt like Weiner did a great job of putting those topics into the story. The Breakaway is a great book that brings an important lesson about loving your body and trusting your instincts. This book is also purely a great summer read with some romance and tense drama.

Thank you to NetGallery and Atria Books for giving me a copy of the book.

Another solid summer read from Jennifer Weiner. For an author as regular and prolific as she is, I am rarely disappointed by her books, and this one is no exception. My only minor quibble is that there are a number of characters here who felt like they were really only there to forward the plot points - I'm looking at you, Kayla Presser - and, for the role they played in the story, didn't really have much characterization. But, overall, very enjoyable. Abby is lovely as a main character, and felt very relatable, particularly her fraught relationship with her mother. And the romantic in me loves the idea that the love of a good woman can change a problematic man (despite the underlying unreality in this!) I'm not entirely sure that I buy that Dr. Mark would still be so enamored of never-lost-weight Abby, particularly with all he went through. But, we never get to hear his inner monologue, so, who knows? I guess I found this book way more enjoyable when you just accept the facts that this world presents you with, and don't try to tether them to reality - which, it is a RomCom, I think that's a perfectly acceptable way to read it! It is a very enjoyable read, with fun, quirky characters, and interesting settings. A solid 4 star read.

The Breakaway was an enjoyable return to the style of Jennifer Weiner's first few books, and I really loved Abby's story. Abby is thirty-four, and she doesn't yet have a career that she's passionate about. She does have a passion for bicycling and a solid, two-year relationship with Mark, a handsome, kind, and dependable guy she met at weight-loss camp when they were teenagers. Like Abby's mom, Mark makes being fit and eating healthy his passion, and Abby is starting to have doubts if she can share her life with someone so different (who also doesn't share her love of road biking). When Abby leads a two-week trail ride through upstate New York, she is shocked that a previous guy she connected with, Sebastian, is part of the group, as well as her mom. I loved the way the book was structured around a journey which also mimicks Abby's journey toward self-discovery--highly recommended if you enjoy your contemporary fiction with some spicy scenes and an overall message of body positivity. Thanks to Netgalley, Atria, and the author for the librarian preview copy!

Similar to several of Weiner's other books, The Breakaway's main character Abby Stern has a disorganized life. Always a bit overweight and defensive about it, Abby, at 34, hasn't completed much in the way of life goals. She doesn't seem to have life goals. But, her mother has more than enough for her which include losing weight (she sends Abby to fat camp as a child), and finishing her master's degree or at least finding a better job than dog-walker in Philadelphia and helping out with bicycle trips.

Abby isn't too concerned. After all, she is expecting Mark, whom she's known since fat camp in their teens, to propose. And Mark is slim now and a Jewish doctor. But then Abby meets a man, Sebastian, and has a one-night stand she thinks about for years but assumes she will never see again.

Imagine her surprise when Sebastian, and Abby's mother, show up on a bike trip she is hsheperding across the state of New York. In addition to that, one of the other members of the trip, a teenage girl, has a problem that changes Abby's life goals.

After the trip, Abby reevaluates her life, with some surprise results.

I really loved the character of Abby and hearing about her struggle with others who didn't see her as thin enough. I liked the long-distance bike tour as a setting for the story and Sebastian, the kissing bandit. The relationships between mothers and daughters was also something to think about. This was an enjoyable read. I was given an advanced reader copy of this book and have left an honest review.

Easily one of the best books I have read this year. I love Jennifer, and this book is no exception. From the very first chapter, I was hooked on Abby and her story. I think any one who has gone through issues with their weight or family can easily relate. The book covered important and relevant topics without being too heavy. It was a fast paced summer read. I only wish there was an epilogue. Maybe a sequel down the line?

Thank you to netgalley, the publisher for this opportunity to read an arc in exchange for my honest review.