Deborah Shapiro

I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher (Catapult) in exchange for an honest review.

Going into this book, I was very excited to read it because loved the premise. It’s exactly the type of book I like to read. However, the execution left much to be desired.

I didn’t become hooked into the book until about halfway through. That is when things got interesting due to an arrival of a new character. Once that happened, the book ended rather quickly. It felt like there could have been a lot more development in that second half. There was a lot of potential for things to get more complex. I was waiting for it to reach a breaking point, but it never did.

When it came to the characters, I felt like the supporting ones were not fully fleshed out. For example, I never felt like I truly knew much about the main character’s husband, David, and how he felt during the whole thing. I expected there to be more tension surrounding him.

As for the writing, I did like the prose. There was something special about it and it really helped set the tone and mood of the story. The prose also highlighted the mystique of the camp well.

Overall, this book had a lot of potential but it ultimately fell flat.… (mer)

The Short of It:

Gave me all the feels of The Big Chill but with a smaller cast of characters.

The Rest of It:

On the verge of her fortieth birthday, Emily inherits an abandoned summer camp from her aunt. She and her husband move there, with the hopes of transforming it into an artist colony. The old, main house is full of charm and memories but the rest of the camp is in need of repair. They both realize it will take quite a bit of resources to get it to where it needs to be. What they don’t immediately realize though is that they already have their first guest.

I really enjoyed The Summer Demands. Emily and her husband are in a good place. Even though she is without a job and trying to find her way again after suffering a miscarriage, Emily is hopeful if not a little lost. But when she stumbles upon Stella, a twenty-something who is essentially squatting on their property, her first reaction is to help her, not oust her and she holds that secret for a little while before telling her husband.

It’s these moments between Stella and Emily that cause so much tension. Female friendships and intimacy, envy, jealousy and longing. Emily is a tad infatuated with Stella but when Stella meets Emily’s husband, Emily notices that everyone she meets is kind of infatuated with Stella. It’s just who she is.

Emily and Stella loll around the camp, swimming, watching movies, and soaking up the sun but as a reader you just know that this idyllic summer must end eventually, and it does. I loved the easiness of this novel. I loved the complexities of female friendships displayed here and I liked how the author explored things without making you feel too strongly about any one thing.

Plus, the setting was great. The lake and the sunlight filtering through the trees. It’s all so palpable. I really enjoyed The Summer Demands but it definitely falls into the “quiet novel” category which I enjoy very much.

For more reviews, visit my blog: Book Chatter.… (mer)

Here's an unusual novel about a triangulated relationship between two women and one man - two strong women and one man who seems tossed between them with little control over his own fate. Viv's PoV is the dominant one in most of the story, but it's Lee who gets our attention because she's the daughter of a dead rock god ( resembling Gram Parsons deliberately, per the author). Viv and Lee feed off each other in a heartfelt symbiosis. Lee's former flame is Andy, who first worshipped the late Lee Parrish, singer/songwriter, and then his daughter Lee, when all three become college roommates. Yet it's Viv who marries Andy. Feeling excluded, Lee entices Viv to join her on a road trip to find her father's missing tapes. Their bond is cemented but once again loosened when Lee discovers a buried family secret. Once it's known, Lee takes over the narrative. There's some amazing inner thoughts expressed here:

"I had willed myself to believe that over time two people simply reach a point where they harness the electrical current between them for something like the smooth functioning of an efficient refrigerator."

"Andy", I heard her say by the door. And it was so much at once: greeting, apology, request, demand, past, and present."… (mer)