The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner (audiobook)

 genre: contemporary fiction

Sarah Danhauser's stepdaughter Ruby has announced her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, Gabe.  They plan to marry at Sarah's family's house up on the Cape, a beloved retreat.  This announcement starts a chain of events that will stir the pot of the lives of so many of Ruby and Gabe's family members, in one way or another.  Secrets and lies,  old flings and new drama - all of it will come crashing down while everyone tries to keep their game face on and support Ruby and Gabe.  It's not easy.

I chose the audio because I saw that SUTTON FOSTER was going to be reading it!  She did an excellent job, actually.  I never had trouble knowing who was speaking and the pacing was great.  The book itself, however, was more challenging.  There were so many "main" characters with so much interspersed backstory that it was a lot of brainwork to keep people and their stories straight.  I loved the Cape house itself as a centerpiece in the family story but there is just so much infidelity, sneakiness and unhappiness that sometimes this story really was too much of a drag.  There was more than one coincidence in this story that I had to try super hard to believe and eventually I just had to let it go and try to appreciate what this book was trying to share: families are so complicated, our pasts can absolute decimate our present and listening to our hearts in the first place is always going to be a better choice than trying to put the pieces back together afterwards.