Review of The Five-Star Weekend

In the summer I always find time to read a few beachy books, and this one was fun. Check out my review of The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand. And be sure to check out my reading and watching guide for The Perfect Couple, now streaming on Netflix! And The Five Star Weekend will also be a Netflix series, releasing on July 9, 2026!

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

Published on June 13, 2023 by Little, Brown

Plot Summary for The Five-Star Weekend

Hollis Shaw is a successful food blogger happily married to a heart surgeon. But she and her husband Matthew argue one morning before he leaves for the airport, then he dies in a car crash.

The broken-hearted Hollis learns about a “Five-Star Weekend:” a getaway trip that includes a friend from each phase of her life: teenager, twenty-something, thirties, and midlife. Hollis she decides to host her own weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn’t turn out exactly has she planned.

Review of The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

I was surprised to check Goodreads and learn that The Five-Star Weekend is my first Elin Hilderbrand book. And The Five Star Weekend will be adapted as a Netflix series, which I post about here! Coming July 2026!

The Five-Star Weekend is a classic example of female-centered commercial fiction. Just like any subgenre, this kind of book has its tropes. Books like this usually involve a woman struggling through difficult life events and coming out on the other end. I can relate!

The Five-Star Weekend is a grief book. An unusual one, to be sure. From looking at Hilderbrand’s other books, it seems like she often uses a death as the inciting incident in her books. That, or a health crisis.

I found Hollis borderline unlikeable and I think that was deliberate on the author’s part. Hollis is an influencer, and I think the book was trying to make a point about appearances vs. reality.

What I liked about best Hilderbrand’s writing was that it was deeply immersive. As I read, I really felt like I was on the island of Nantucket, feeling the sea breeze blow through my hair. I could almost taste all Hollis’s food and imagine her elaborate tablescapes as if they were right in front of me.

The concept, of gathering a group of women together who represent different stages of your life, was an interesting one and I think made a good story premise. Did it fit with the grief element? I’m not so sure.

The events of The Five-Star Weekend were pretty predicable – as a thriller reader, I found no shocking reveals. The one aspect of the book that could have been a surprise felt obvious to me from the beginning.

The rival friends plot between college friend Dru-Ann and childhood friend Tatum reminded me a LOT of the Rose Byrne/Kristin Wiig relationship in the movie Bridesmaids.

As I said above. The Five-Star Weekend is an unusual grief book. Someone within the book calls out perfectionist Hollis for being a little too chipper after the very unexpected death of her husband. While everyone grieves differently, I could see where the comment was coming from. While I wouldn’t say Hollis seemed glad to have her husband out of the picture, did anyone else feel that she sort of made it all about herself?

I also wasn’t sure how I felt about Hollis’s relationship with her daughter, who felt more like a bratty middle schooler than someone in her twenties. That said, her daughter’s resentment and anger felt like the most real part of the story to me, so I was glad it was there.

I’m not sure if Hollis has a good sense of humor, but I wrote a little limerick about her:

Overall, I thought The Five-Star Weekend was an enjoyable summer read. If you are a regular Elin Hilderbrand reader, please tell me how this compares to her other books. What are your favorites of her titles!