The Summer We Read Gatsby
by Danielle Ganek
A perfect book club book, this light beach read really has nothing to do with The Great Gatsby. It’s an obvious trick to cash in on a classic in order to boost sales, but if you like reading silly fluff, don’t let that stop you.
Two half-sisters, as different as night and day, inherit a dilapidated shack from their aunt. But it’s in the Hamptons, so they decide to stay for the summer. Who cares if the back deck could collapse at any minute? They’ll throw parties until it does. What does it matter that unsavory characters (aka artists) stay in the house rent free? They’ll just embrace the bohemian atmosphere and not worry about their personal safety.
One sister has her heart set on a millionaire without good taste, and the other (the narrator) is of course sensible and expects her partner to be as flawless as she is. Never mind that she’s very flawed and unrealistic, making a living by writing scant magazine articles. She secretly wants a man to take care of her, just like popular culture assumes all women want. In comes her love interest: an architect with good taste (able to put a roof over her head), skills in the kitchen (can literally nourish her), tons of money (so she can still dabble at her articles but won’t actually be responsible for an income), and is terribly interested in her no matter how much she pushes him away. He might just be the most unrealistic love interest in a book I’ve ever read.
While this formulaic beach read is frustrating most of the time, it’ll be entertaining to bash with your girlfriends if you all read it together. Or if you’re looking for a book you don’t really have to pay attention to on an airplane, take this along on the way to your vacation.
Two half-sisters, as different as night and day, inherit a dilapidated shack from their aunt. But it’s in the Hamptons, so they decide to stay for the summer. Who cares if the back deck could collapse at any minute? They’ll throw parties until it does. What does it matter that unsavory characters (aka artists) stay in the house rent free? They’ll just embrace the bohemian atmosphere and not worry about their personal safety.
One sister has her heart set on a millionaire without good taste, and the other (the narrator) is of course sensible and expects her partner to be as flawless as she is. Never mind that she’s very flawed and unrealistic, making a living by writing scant magazine articles. She secretly wants a man to take care of her, just like popular culture assumes all women want. In comes her love interest: an architect with good taste (able to put a roof over her head), skills in the kitchen (can literally nourish her), tons of money (so she can still dabble at her articles but won’t actually be responsible for an income), and is terribly interested in her no matter how much she pushes him away. He might just be the most unrealistic love interest in a book I’ve ever read.
While this formulaic beach read is frustrating most of the time, it’ll be entertaining to bash with your girlfriends if you all read it together. Or if you’re looking for a book you don’t really have to pay attention to on an airplane, take this along on the way to your vacation.