I really enjoyed this book, it was tense and had me second guessing on every page. A real page turner!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the complimentary copy of The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop.

I finished this book in 2 days. This was well written and very apt in our current times where so many horrific stories keep coming to light about the awful behaviour towards women (predominantly) in the past.

Rachel has returned to a beautiful Greek island with her husband Tom. As she is about to leave the restaurant she runs into someone from her past.

The story is told in two parts, each chapter focuses on the past or the current time. We meet Alistair who Rachel falls in love with at seventeen and has loved since that gorgeous summer they spent together. As the story progresses, the beauty of that summer is dissected and the ugliness of the parties, the drugs, and the assault of women while under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

Rachel contacts Alistair who is also now in London and begins an affair with him. As she remembers more of what happened all those years ago and speaking to her group of friends from that time, Rachel realises that Alistair has manipulated her.

This book resonates with current stories of women who were manipulated by men in power and that they were made to feel that they actually did want what happened to them.

I'm not sure what it was that I was expecting from this book, but I can definitely say that it wasn't a story that was so dark and harrowing. When I first started, I felt like I was getting into a "supermarket thriller" with a mystery set abroad and some twists and reveals. That very quickly changed.

What I think I find so uncomfortable about reading this book was that it felt so very real and close to home. I've been on girls holidays at the same age that Rachel would have been and I recognised all of those feelings and events. Thinking that you're invincible and nothing bad will happen. Rachel could have so easily been me.

I feel that some people could look at Rachel and the other girls and think them naive or foolish for not leaving the island, but I completely disagree. They were lulled into a world of sun, sea, booze and carefree days. They were made to believe that they should be grateful to these older men taking advantage of them. They were groomed, pure and simple. And I found the entire story to be petrifying.

Nothing about this book sat well with me but it wasn't supposed to. This work of fiction could have quite easily been a true crime documentary and that is so scary. However uncomfortable this book made me, it was brilliantly written with three dimensional characters and it was a fantastic read.

A definite summer read that you will not want to put down. The storyline was quite dramatic in some areas which only enhanced the storyline. Buy this book and take it on holiday with you. You wont regret it

Loved this book, it was thought provoking, well written and it stays with you.
I enjoyed the storyline and felt it was credible and could easily of happened and how times move on changes happen for the right reasons.

This is a very intense book. The pacing was quite slow. The writing was good. I felt that this was nothing special and original

Rachel's dewy eyed ignorance makes sense when she's seventeen (to an extent)...but as a grown woman, it's a bit far fetched that she would be SO oblivious to EVERYTHING that transpired that fateful summer. Not to mention her treatment of her poor husband Tom, who basically gets strung along for no apparent reason (still not even sure why she married him in the first place!). There isn't really a lot to like about Rachel, and because she doesn't learn a thing even when the truth is being shouted in her face, it's hard to feel sorry for her.

A very compelling read. I’ve read this today curled up under a blanket dreaming of my summer holiday. It shows how easy it is to drag young girls into being controlled and I loved the dual timeline. The main character is someone you will root for and despair about in equal measure. A great book for the upcoming summer. Go buy!

what a interesting book to read we all think in our early teens that summer holidays abroad are fab and dont want them to end but reading this book through racheals eyes and her friends gives one a different understanding into these hols

I've just devoured the debut novel by Katie Bishop on th strain during our break away and flew through it. I know some readers have had issues with it as it could easily trigger people of the me too collective but I found it to be believable and enjoyable (apart from the obvious of course). Set in Greece it tells of Rachel's summer where she flies out there with her best friend to work there. There they meet other terms and find employment in the bars under the watchful eye of Alistair, a man who promises them a summer they'll never forget. Unknown to Rachel these things come at a high price and it's not until she hits her thirties that she discovers exactly what happened that summer - or did she really always know and was reluctant to believe it?

A great summer read! It felt quite mysterious and tense and I was immersed in the story. Love this cover too!

Very much in the vein of My Dark Vanessa this examines the relationship between a younger woman and an older man in a heightened position of power.
This is an uncomfortable read at times due to the subject matter, but never overblown or over the top. Well written and powerful

My Thoughts:

I got so invested in this book so quickly. It starts out as a teenage gap year holiday to the sunny Greek islands and turns into a dark twisty little number about how easy it is to be coerced into thinking either you are the problem, or there isn't really a problem to begin with.

I enjoyed the dual timeline, of Rachel at 17, and then Rachel in her 30s, married and still being caught up in her past life.

I found myself constantly wanting to pick this up to see what happened next, and that is always a good sign!

✩✩✩✩

Thank you to @netgalley and Transworld Publishers for the eArc.

A simmering tale of teenage love and longing, but overlaid with something a lot more questionable happening alongside, which isnt apparent until the protagonist looks back on her life with a more adult approach.
I was expecting a light summer read from the cover and was blown away by the depth of the storyline. Its powerful and necessary reading.

This is a dark unsettling story that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It took me a little while to get into the story but that's only because I'm a mood reader and I hadn't quite got the head on for the story but I soon warmed up to it

At first I wasn’t sure this book was for me. How wrong was I? A powerful, slowly developing plot, revealing insight and essential understanding on a tricky subject.

As a parent, seeing teenagers ‘act out’ and thinking they know everything, is a phenomenon many people will be aware of. How unscrupulous people can manipulate and manage the children’s views becomes scarily clear in this book.

The characters are well-developed, acting as I would expect young people to, whilst travelling the world, enjoying freedoms and making decisions for themselves. In this book it is interesting to see how they then develop into adults and carry with them ‘memories’ of their adventures. Not always likeable, I don’t think they are always meant to be, but drawing huge empathy from the reader as the book draws to quite dramatic conclusions, putting into context the complete picture.

The story is told from several timelines, mostly ‘then’ and ‘now’, although with some backstory included, to round out the understanding for the reader.

Particularly helpful are the details for contacting helplines for the variety of issues covered within the book.

I would recommend this, particularly to parents, as both a great read and to gain an understanding of some pressure young people can face.

Gut renching, relatable to many, The Girls of Summer is a superb debut that will linger with you for a long time after you have finished it. A powerful and resonating read.

The Summer Girls by Kate Bishop is a story of young love, which was in hindsight an abusive, controlling affair with a man 20 years older than the seventeen year old Rachel. Rachel returns to the island when she is married to Tom and remembers her live before with Alistair.
The Girls of Summer grapples with themes of power, sex and consent and the MeToo movement.
Recommended

A thought-provoking and unsettling read, drawing inspiration from the #MeToo movement which found many women re-living and re-examining their past experiences around consent, power and control.

Rachel is now in her mid-thirties but still thinks of the older man she met on a Greek island when she was 17 as her great love, even though she is now married to someone else and they are planning to start a family. We follow dual timelines exploring the two relationships, prompted by meeting friends from the past and leading her to the eventual realisation that neither her first love nor the people she met on that island were really as she remembered.

Rachel aged seventeen and her friend Caroline head off for a summer holiday in Greece, there she will meet Alistair a man twenty years older than her. Rachel is seduced and charmed by this older man.

Fifteen years later Rachel is married to someone else she still longs to relive the memories of her time with Alistair, unable to accept the truth of what really happened that summer.

When old friends contact her from that vacation, they force her to face the reality that her relationship with Alistair for what it really was. Turning her life upside down.

A compelling read. The way the story moves from a group of teenagers enjoying the summer parties and then it turns into something more sinister took my breath away!!

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.