Have you read The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner and need to discuss all the twists and turns and bed-swapping? I am here with my notepad watching the drama play out and ready to talk about it. Spoilers ahead! Welcome to my Spoiler Review and Discussion for The Summer Place!
Spoiler Discussion for The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner
I thought this would be a short post, but geez there are a lot of romantic twists and turns in this one.
Plot Summary for The Summer Place
Character List for The Summer Place
Spoiler Discussion for The Summer Place
Plot Summary for The Summer Place
College students Ruby and Gabe announce that they are getting married at Ruby’s step-grandmother’s house in Cape Cod. Ruby’s stepmother Sarah is shocked by the announcements.
Sarah’s aunt Suzanne tells her friend Veronica that she’s sent DNA tests to Sarah and her twin brother Sam as birthday gifts. Ronnie is upset about this.
Gabe announces to his mom Rosa that he’s getting married. When Gabe tells Rosa the name of his fiancé and her parents, Rosa obviously knows Eli. When she got pregnant with Eli, her friend told her to find a rich guy to sleep with and get money from him for an abortion. (Apparently Eli must have filled this role).
Sarah tells her friend Marni that Eli has been strangely distant lately. Sarah, annoyed by Eli’s constant presence during the pandemic, rented a studio apartment in Manhattan for herself.
Yikes, are Ruby and Gabe actually half-siblings?
Eli recalls that, yes, he had an affair during the time his first wife Annette was pregnant with Ruby. Yes, the affair was with a woman who is quite probably Rosa, Gabe’s mother. When the mystery woman, who called herself “Jane,” turned up at his door saying she was pregnant, Eli gave her money for an abortion. When Eli met Gabe, he was stunned that Gabe looked exactly like his mystery lover.
Ronnie Thinks She Should be in the National Enquirer
Ronnie puts her Cape Cod house up for sale. She recalls an affair she had in the 80s, when she had a serious boyfriend, Lee, the guy she eventually married. She gets pregnant just when she and the guy, Gregory, decide to break things off. For some reason ( I guess because the doctors didn’t realize she was having twins right away) she is convinced that one of her twins is Gregory’s and the other one is Lee’s.
Maybe this is technically possible, but I feel like she’s getting her medical information from General Hospital.
Sam Reads Erotic Harry Potter Fanfic
Sam recalls how reading Harry-Draco erotic fanfic made him realize he was bisexual.
During wedding planning, Sarah runs into Owen, a guy she’d met in Cape Cod right before heading to college. (lol the people that Sarah’s family call The Pond People are basically the characters in The Paper Palace.)
Eli recalls face-timing with Rosa, Sarah and Gabe after the engagement. Rosa is clearly Jane but pretends not to know him. Eli gets his brother to steal DNA samples from Gabe and Ruby’s apartment, but Ari botches it and sends the wrong toothbrush.
Sarah Succumbs to the Family Cheating Curse
Owen tells Sarah he broke up with her because he didn’t want her knowing his WASP family was actually poor. They go to her secret studio and Sarah plays the piano for Owen and they sleep together.
The family begins to arrive for the wedding. Ronnie admits to Sarah that she cheated on Sarahs’ father, Lee. Sarah asks if that’s why Ronnie stopped writing.
Ruby Calls the Wedding Off
Ruby decides to back out of the wedding and leaves Gabe a note. Ruby’s mom Annette shows up and they head off in Annette’s car.
Sam Sleeps With His New Nephew-in-law
Sam goes to a Provincetown gay bar and runs into a young man. They leave together and have sex on the beach. The guy says his name is Anthony. Eli is freaking out over Jane/Rosa showing up. Sam realizes that “Anthony” is actually Gabe. Rosa tells Eli that Gabe is not his son.
Sarah “Takes a Swim” (a Paper Palace reference?)
Owen texts Sarah to meet. Sarah then sees Eli on the beach with Rosa. What to do? She tells her mother she’s going for a pond swim. (If you’ve read The Paper Palace, lolol.) Gabe announces to the group that the wedding is off. Sarah meets Owen at the edge of the pond. He wants sex first, and it isn’t great. Sarah tells Owen she thinks Eli is cheating on her. Owen tells Sarah that his family’s old lot is for sale, and Sarah feels manipulated.
Rosa tells Gabe that she slept with Eli twenty years ago and they laugh about the fact that Eli thought he could be Gabe’s father.
Ruby shows up. Ronnie passes out. Eli calls Sarah and tells her that the wedding is off and he needs to talk to her. An ambulance comes for Ronnie. At the hospital, the doctor tells them that Ronnie has cancer but was postponing surgery until after the wedding.
All the Rest of the Secrets Come Out (and so does Sam….)
Eli tells Sarah about sleeping with Rosa decades ago. Sam tells Sarah he met someone. Gabe tells Ruby he cheated.
One year later, the family gathers for Ronnie’s funeral. Sarah and Sam reveal that they never took the DNA tests that Veronica sent.
Character List for The Summer Place
Sarah Weinberg Danhauser -(40) wife to Eli, mom to Dexter and Miles, and stepmom to Ruby. She was a former pianist who now worked as the administrator of a music school.
Eli Danhauser (early 50s) a periodontist
Ari Danhauser – Eli’s fifty-something brother
Ruby Danhauser (22) daughter of Eli and Annette, stepdaughter to Sarah
Gabe – Ruby’s fiance
Rosa – Gabe’s mother. An aspiring singer who got pregnant with Gabe when she was 21.
Veronica (Ronnie) Levy (70s) mother to Sarah and Sam. Former English professor and novelist. (She’s a crossover character from That Summer, as I discuss below!)
Sam Levy-Weinberg (39) Sarah’s twin brother. He’s raising his wife Julie’s son after Julie dies in a car accident.
Connor – Sam’s stepson, whom Sam adopted after Julie died.
Suzanne – Veronica’s sister
The house – yes, the house is a character and has its own chapters.
Crossover Characters in The Summer Place:
Dr. Veronica “Ronnie” Levy, who is Sarah’s mother, is a crossover character from from That Summer. Diana, one of the main characters in That Summer, also makes an appearance as the owner of Safe Harbor, where Ruby is holding her wedding. Love crossover characters.
If there are others that we have missed (I haven’t read the other “summer” books for some time) please let me know!
Cheat sheet on the cheating in The Summer Place:
Veronica cheated on Lee, her boyfriend and got pregnant with the twins. She’s convinced that one man fathered each twin.
Eli cheated on his wife Annette with Rosa, who was pregnant and trying to find a rich man to con. (lol they are perfect for each other!)
Sarah cheats on Eli with Owen.
Sam sleeps with Gabe right after Gabe and Ruby break up (not really cheating but a bit awkward.)
Spoiler Discussion for The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner
Jennifer Weiner is always mixing it up, from a murder mystery in Big Summer to domestic drama in That Summer (I will link to Spoiler Discussions of those at the end of this post) and now we have The Summer Place.
I really wasn’t sure what to think of this book. It started out seeming like classic women’s fiction (with the relatable characters that Weiner is known for) and then just got stranger and more outlandish. Half-siblings engaged to each other? Twins fathered by different men? Erotic Harry Potter fanfic? Toothbrush stealing for a DNA test?
In her acknowledgments, Jennifer Weiner describes her goal for the book as a Noel Coward farce meets A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Yes, That Summer is a whirlwind of bed-swapping and cheating and secrets.
What amused me (and perhaps only me) is that being someone familiar with Cape Cod and who read The Paper Palace, this seemed to me to be the “new money” version of that story, complete with characters who shade the WASPs of The Paper Palace with their shabby, non-air conditioned houses. There’s also a woman trying to decide between her husband and a former flame who takes a pond swim.
In any case, I am not a huge fan of farce on stage, with all the door slamming and the sneaking around, and so The Summer Place wasn’t an ideal book for me. At first it seemed like a pleasant beach read soap opera and then it just got a little too out-there.
But if you loved it, tell me in comments!!
As promised, here are the links to the spoiler discussions of the two other books in Weiner’s Summer series:
Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner (2020). This is my favorite of the three, a murder mystery featuring an influencer at a summer wedding in Cape Cod.
That Summer by Jennifer Weiner (2021)
Eli’s storyline drove me crazy. Why did he not say something to Ruby the minute he suspected Gabe might be her half-sibling? To me it’s morally wrong to keep that info to yourself. And it was more or less glossed over at the end. My mind was blown that nobody appeared all that bothered by it.
That was CRAZY. I mean they were getting married and he didn’t want to mention that they were possibly half siblings? I think that was the point in the book I decided the story was like Days of Our Lives with evil twins and baby swapping and I couldn’t take any of it seriously.
There was a *lot* going on here but based on Weiner’s author’s note I guess that was the intention – a big, juicy, farcical story. A lot of it worked for me; some of it did not. Sarah’s cheating with Owen didn’t sit well with me. It felt too much like a device. I know there was more to it – her unresolved feelings for Owen, her unresolved feelings regarding her career/life choices, the trouble with Eli – but it still felt too much like a middle finger to Eli. I actually enjoyed the Sam/Gabe situation and while it was a bit coincidental/out there I actually thought it worked. The kinda/sorta magical realism aspect with the beach house being sentient… I wasn’t a fan. It wasn’t done often but I just didn’t feel like it was needed.
I 100% agree with all your points. It was definitely her intention and I think she said it was a book for her mom so I respect that and remain a fan of hers even if this really wasn’t my cup of tea.
A lot of the crazy shenanigans were in the past, but I didn’t love that Sarah made that choice in the present.
Sentient beach house lolol that sounds even funnier than it was.
I love Jennifer Weiner usually but she is writing a lot more sex scenes and they are… not good. They make me uncomfortable to read and I am not a prude. Eww.
Christine! Thanks for making me laugh. I’ve been reading her books forever and trying to remember if her earliest books had them, like Good in Bed. And I agree I think they are harder to write well than people assume!
I am obsessing over how Sam and Gabe didn’t recognize each other! No social media overlap? No pandemic family FaceTiming? Did I miss some explanation of this?
You mean when they met in the bar and hooked up? You’re right that it’s weird but I guess they had never met, even virtually. Weren’t Gabe and Ruby living with Sarah during the pandemic? So many people started doing family FaceTimes then. And you’re right – Gabe and Ruby (and probably Sam) would have been on social media.
I agree that the plot is too preposterous, and if Jennifer Weiner was trying for Shakespeare-like farce, she failed. Jennifer Weiner’s greatest skill is writing relatable characters, and she does that, until their stories become too preposterous to be credible. A mother who wonders if her twins have different fathers; a father who wonders if the one woman with whom he had a brief affair is the mother of his daughter’s fiance. It doesn’t work for me.
I completely agree with you. For me, this book was just too out-there. When I read about her mother’s love for farce, I was touched that she was inspired by that. But I think farce is really hard to pull off. Fortunately my mom loved mysteries, so if I ever write her a book in her honor, I’m good.