Looking Back - Summer Island

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Summer Island by Kristin Hannah

Fiction

2001 Crown 

Finished on June 22, 2001

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

The author of the cherished bestseller On Mystic Lake returns with a poignant, funny, luminous novel about a mother and daughter—the complex ties that bind them, the past that separates them, and the healing that comes with forgiveness.

Years ago, Nora Bridge walked out on her marriage and left her daughters behind. She has since become a famous radio talk-show host and newspaper columnist beloved for her moral advice. Her youngest daughter, Ruby, is a struggling comedienne who uses her famous mother as fuel for her bitter, cynical humor. When the tabloids unearth a scandalous secret from Nora's past, their estrangement suddenly becomes dramatic: Nora is injured in an accident and a glossy magazine offers Ruby a fortune to write a tell-all about her mother. Under false pretenses, Ruby returns home to take care of the woman she hasn't spoken to for almost a decade.

Nora insists they retreat to Summer Island in the San Juans, to the lovely old house on the water where Ruby grew up, a place filled with childhood memories of love and joy and belonging. There Ruby is also reunited with her first love and his brother. Once, the three of them had been best friends, inseparable. Until the summer that Nora had left and everyone's hearts had been broken. . . 

What began as an exposé evolves, as Ruby writes, into an exploration of her family's past. Nora is not the woman Ruby has hated all these years. Witty, wise, and vulnerable, she is desperate to reconcile with her daughter. As the magazine deadline draws near and Ruby finishes what has begun to seem to her an act of brutal betrayal, she is forced to grow up and at last to look at her mother—and herself—through the eyes of a woman. And she must, finally, allow herself to love.

Summer Island is a beautiful novel, funny, tender, sad, and ultimately triumphant.

My Original Thoughts (2001):

I almost gave up on this book early on. It started off too much like a Danielle Steel novel. But then something grabbed my interest and the story improved. I really enjoyed it for what it is--fluff, but not great literature. I even got choked up a few times! Good passages about love and faith. I may read more by Hannah.

My Current Thoughts:

It's interesting to see how this author's writing has evolved over the years. Her recent novels, which are more serious, revolving around historical themes, are a welcome departure from her early works of romance and fluff. I doubt I'll read this again, but the setting in the San Juans is appealing.