If you’ve read That Summer by Jennifer Weiner and want to discuss, you’re in the right place! Need a plot summary of That Summer? Have questions about what happened? Check out my Spoiler Discussion for That Summer
Spoiler Discussion for That Summer
Table of Contents for my Spoiler Discussion for That Summer
- Quick Plot Summary
- What Was the Ending of That Summer? The Ending Explained
- Spoiler Discussion
- Book Club Questions for That Summer
This isn’t a book that has THAT many spoilers until the very end, but if you DON’T want spoilers, check out my spoiler-free review of That Summer here!
Plot Summary for That Summer
CONTENT WARNING: this book is about the aftermath of a sexual assault. The assault is described, but not in great detail. The aftermath of that assault is a major part of the book.
One summer in the 1980s, fifteen year-old Diana is working as a mother’s helper in Cape Cod. She meets Poe, who’s a senior at at a New Hampshire prep school called Emlen. They spend time together and then he invites her to a bonfire party on the beach.
In the present, a 38 year-old woman also named Diana (nicknamed Daisy) is concerned that her daughter Beatrice will be kicked out of Emlen, her boarding school, after protesting the way the school handled the sexual assault of her roommate.
Daisy’s father died when she was fourteen, and this plus the family’s financial problems ruined her own plans to attend Emlen like her older brothers.
Daisy met her lawyer husband Hal (an Emlen classmate of her older brother Danny) when she was twenty and he was thirty three. Daisy dropped out of college and was married and pregnant two years later and now teaches cooking classes.
Daisy has been receiving emails meant for another Diana, who reaches out to apologize for the mixup. The two agree to meet for a drink in New York.
At drinks, Diana pretends to be a single fifty-something businesswoman. But after saying goodbye to Daisy, she heads to the ladies room and takes off her elaborate disguise.
She is (as we all probably suspected) the same Diana from the bonfire party. Something terrible clearly happened that night, something that involves Daisy’s husband Hal and his Emlen friends.
As she removes her disguise, Diana reflects that she liked Daisy but is still going to ruin her life.
Back in the past, the woman who employed Diana as a mother’s helper that summer comes to see her. Diana has dropped out of college and is struggling.
The woman offers Diana her cottage on Cape Cod and Diana accepts. She gets a job at a restaurant in Provincetown and meets Michael, the cottage caretaker.
In the present, Daisy is still frustrated with Beatrice, who is now attending a local private school and experimenting with crafting and taxidermy. Hal returns from the funeral of one of his prep school friends who died by suicide. Diana calls Daisy with exciting news: she’s moving to Philadelphia.
Daisy goes to Philadelphia to give Diana a cooking lesson. Diana casually asks Daisy about her husband and his Emlen classmates. Daisy mentions that her brother Danny was one of them and later came out as gay.
Back in the past, Diana opens up to Michael about what happens to her. He wins Diana’s trust and they eventually marry and buy the cottage.
But she tells him she’s not sure she wants children and that she dreams of revenge.One day while accompanying Michael to another beach house he is caretaker of, Diana sees a photo of her attacker. Poe is Hal, Daisy’s husband. (This we had also figured out, right?)
In the present, Diana comes to visit Daisy and confides to her that, years ago, she’d been raped. She’s about to reveal more, but Daisy gets a call from Beatrice asking her mom to come pick her up.
Diana goes to Emlen posing as a researcher. In the yearbooks, she identifies the two other boys who participated in her rape.
She finds the name of a woman that Poe/Hal bragged about sleeping with in his yearbook senior shoutouts. Diana calls her and asks if she thinks Poe could rape someone. The woman just says “anyone is capable of anything” and hangs up. Looking at old photos, Diana realizes that Danny, Daisy’s brother, witnessed her rape.
Diana, who now has a gun, starts stalking Brad, the third participant in her rape. He’s a divorced alcoholic who works at Starbucks. She confronts him and he apologizes but she says she wants to make him suffer. He commits suicide.
Daisy and Diana host a dinner party together. At the party, Diana privately confronts Danny and Hal. Danny apologizes and Diana abruptly leaves.
Daisy goes to Diana’s Philly apartment to try to speak to her, but the doorman says no one named Diana lives there. She calls Diana, who agrees to meet her. Diana tells Daisy the story of her rape. Daisy flees to the bathroom to collect herself and when she returns, Diana is gone.
Daisy wonders why her brother let her marry a rapist (!?) She calls Danny who admits “he could have done more” but says he was in love with Hal (?!?) He mentions that he did tell their mom (?!?!)
Michael urges Diana to keep going in her quest for revenge.
Daisy confronts her mother, who agrees that Danny did tell her something about a wild high school party that got out of hand.
Spoilers for the Ending of That Summer
Daisy calls Diana and wants to meet her on the Cape. Danny calls Hal in a panic. Hal calls Daisy and says he’s coming to the Cape too. YES – finally the dramatic showdown we have been waiting for!
Hal arrives and Diana gives Daisy some odd warning about the slippery deck and a loose post. (Let’s talk about that below!) Daisy and Hal argue. He stumbles a little on the deck, reaching out to her to steady himself and Daisy thinks for a moment about letting him die … but instead she tells him she wants a divorce.
Daisy and Beatrice spend the summer on the Cape and Daisy cooks at Diana’s restaurant.
Spoiler Discussion for That Summer
Wow, for me there was a lot about That Summer to discuss!
These could be Book Club discussion questions for That Summer, and as we discuss, I will add more to the list!
What did you think of the characters in That Summer, especially Diana and Daisy?
To me, Diana was the heart of the book. I think Jennifer Weiner’s gift as a writer is creating characters like Diana that feel completely real and empathetic. Diana’s story was heartbreaking and her journey to recover from her sexual assault was truly moving. Heart-eyes to Michael, who was a delight.
I struggled to understand Daisy. Which is odd, as I have the most in common with her on the surface. I think the book would have been more interesting if we’d seen her grow into an even stronger character.
I’m not sure why Beatrice was included as a POV character (and portrayed as a feminist/activist) if she was going to fade into the background when Daisy finally found out what Hal did.
That was an odd missed opportunity in my mind. Beatrice is fifteen and the book sets up that she is deeply passionate about the issues that the book tries to raise. Why have us spend all that time with her and then have her disappear?
Plus, she put dead animals in the freezer so maybe she could have murdered her father at the end and stuck him in there. (Yes, I’m DEFINITELY a thriller reader at heart.)
Did you find the prologue confusing?
I saw a few people say this on Goodreads. Jennifer Weiner used this same technique in Big Summer as a way to link the 1990s murder to the story in the present, so I guess I was prepared.
I figured out pretty quickly who the Diana in the prologue was, but I can see how it could have been confusing, especially when you don’t find out what happened at the bonfire for a while.
What genre would you place That Summer in?
Yes, Jennifer Weiner is a women’s fiction writer but her last book did have a murder. Confession: I am a HUGE thriller fan so it’s not unusual for me to get thriller vibes from books that aren’t thrillers. But … was this book gaslighting me into thinking I was getting a thriller?
Diana puts on a disguise, she makes a burner email to lure Daisy in, she talks repeatedly about revenge, she has a gun and stalks her attackers and then for me the book took an abrupt turn right into women’s fiction.
I said in my spoiler-free review that I feel like this book was trying to be in the dark suburban literary fiction lane as Little Fires Everywhere or Big Little Lies (and I think that Last Summer has a lot of parallels to both these books) but feel like Jennifer Weiner’s warm, empathetic, non-edgy writing style was at odds with some of the dark edgy details that were incorporated in the story. (Also, a book doesn’t have to be a thriller to be gripping and interesting.)
What did you think of Daisy and Diana’s relationship?
Again, to me, the book started out by setting up a dichotomy: Diana the huntress versus Daisy the innocent flower who’s about to get stomped on. I felt the book set that conflict up and I was READY for it. But I didn’t get it.
Maybe Diana had a sudden change of heart or maybe the book decided to go with a “women sticking together” kind of thing in the end, but then why set up all the conflict just to let it go?
Did Daisy knew Hal was a terrible person all along?
I think the book used her young age at marriage and relative lack of education as excuses as to why she stayed with him, but I could have used more discussion of this.
At the start of the book, Daisy seemed fine with him, but by the end, she suddenly noticed he was going off the rails, drinking too much and making sexist remarks and accusing people of stealing. Was he like this all along and she’d just ignored it or put up with it? Had she not noticed?
I assumed that since Daisy had been married to him for nearly twenty years, she’d be feeling WAY more angst (horror, disbelief) about discovering such terrible things about her husband (and, even worse, the father of her teenage daughter). But to me, she was sort of like, okay, yeah, I guess I see it. I wanted a divorce anyway. Bye!
What did you think of the way the issues of rape and rape culture were raised and discussed in That Summer?
It seemed to me that this book was inspired by the sexual assault accusations against Brett Kavanaugh combined with the St. Paul’s prep school rape case. So I think I went into That Summer expecting a book that would be dramatic, with a lot of twists and turns. A book that involved the police, the courts, or at least the media.
Who should have been held accountable and why?
I think people who have suffered serious trauma should do whatever is best for their own mental health and healing. But I also felt like this book started out in full-on revenge mode and then tried to dodge the issue of justice. Hal suffered no punishment besides the end of his marriage.
Remember, Diana says that she “wanted to hate the men, and everyone connected to them, including the women. Especially the women, all of those enablers, the mothers and the wives who coddled and petted and made excuses, and pleasant nests where their murderous birds could return, to preen and clean the blood off their talons.”
Daisy made a nest for a murderous bird with bloody talons! Should Daisy have been held more accountable and shown more remorse for enabling her husband and his behavior?
How did you feel about the ending of That Summer ?
Diana thinks about the fact that she’s going to ruin Daisy’s life. She has a gun. She has long conversations with her husband about revenge. And then at the end of the book, she’s sort of like: Daisy, you deal with him.
To be clear, I do NOT think victims of trauma should be ever expected to act a certain way or feel obliged to confront their accusers. But the book seemed to be headed in one direction (revenge/hatred/gun/burn it all down) and then abruptly changes course to another (forgiveness/sisterhood/let it go.)
I don’t mind the change, but there’s not much explanation of WHY Diana shifts gears like this. Did anyone else feel this way or am I just a vengeful person? (For the record: I can forgive but I never forget.) I guess the ending was more realistic but not what I expected.
In That Summer, WAS Diana suggesting that Daisy should kill Hal?
When Hal shows up for this final confrontation, Diana whispers to Daisy how slippery the deck is and how one of the posts is loose. First off: hello, Michael: have you been caretaking your own house?
But more important: was Diana suggesting that Daisy should kill Hal for her? Again, I felt like this book was setting up some kind of dramatic (and possibly violent) revenge plot.
I was SO ready for a showdown on the slippery deck, Big Little Lies-style. Then suddenly Diana, Michael and Beatrice (and the two dogs, I presume) are living happily ever after on the Cape.
Crossover Characters from Big Summer
Did you notice Beatrice’s reference to the events in Big Summer? She talks about the case and how her family’s house is right next to the Lathrop’s house, where the wedding in Big Summer was held.
Crossover Characters to The Summer Place
If you haven’t read the third book of the Summer series, The Summer Place, you might enjoy seeing a cameo appearance by Diana in the book! Then please come join my Spoiler Discussion of The Summer Place.
Book Club book and cocktail pairing:
If you’re reading this for book club, I’d definitely serve Cape Codders for your cocktail. This delicious blend of vodka and cranberry juice can be made non-alcoholic (or less alcoholic) by swapping seltzer for vodka. Add a squeeze of lime if you like!
Join the Spoiler Discussion for That Summer
Thanks for stopping by my Spoiler Discussion for That Summer
What are your thoughts? Our discussions are friendly and all opinions are welcome. Feel free to disagree with me! Be sure to leave a comment and (IMPORTANT) if you want to be notified of my (and other readers’) responses to your comments, subscribe to comment replies. Just click on the bell by the comment box and enter your email to subscribe to the comments for just this post. You can unsubscribe anytime!
If you want to see what Diana has been up to after the ending of That Summer, read The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner! Diana makes a lengthy cameo appearance! It has a VERY different vibe from this book, but I enjoyed it!
