This book includes some extremely heavy topics, and yet it was done so well. There are some major trigger warnings: pedophilia and suicide, so please consider this before reading. It goes into pretty deep details. Based on the cover I thought this was going to be a fun summer read, but it’s one of the heaviest books I’ve read. While I think it’s an important topic to address and the author approaches with seriousness, this will be a difficult read for many so please heed the trigger warnings.

Thanks to NetGalley and Koehler Books for a digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

WOW. This review is so difficult to write because this book is so incredibly beautiful but also the hardest subject matter. At a first glance of the cover, I thought this was an upbeat, summer read. I could not have been more wrong. I very much so hope that this book comes with a trigger warning, but that being said the writing was so well done, it took such a heavy topic and made me, as a reader, even slightly understand the repercussions that happen to those close but not directly involved by what happened.

**SPOILERS AND TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide, Sexual Assault of a Minor, Rape**

We meet Madeline Plympton at her lowest point: she's trying to resume life again after her failed suicide attempt. As Madie tries to resume life, she goes to the places and spaces that defined her childhood, but most importantly, she faces the truth head-on: is her dad, who has been in prison for sexually assaulting her best friend for 5+ years really guilty?

The book follows Madie as she relives her past with her best friend, Summer. By listening to her father's trial, she realizes she may have drawn the wrong conclusion all along, and in doing so finds healing for herself, healing for her mom, and healing for Summer.

As mentioned previously, this is not a light book. It's heavy, sensitive, and dark subject matter, but Dianne Braley does an incredible job of shedding light on this and treating it with the seriousness and tone that it deserves. I would recommend this book to anyone who knows any individuals that have been victims of the aforementioned triggers. I would not recommend this book to any victims of the aforementioned triggers and just want them to know my heart goes out to them for what they had to endure. Please do not stay silent if it happened to you, and know that you did not do anything wrong.

I really enjoyed the way this book handled trauma, it felt very realistic. Overall, this was a very beautiful story with great writing.

4⭐
Genre ~ women’s fiction
Setting ~ Massachusetts
Publication date ~ October 15, 2024
Publisher ~ Koehler Books
Est Page Count ~ 262 (25 chapters)
POV ~ single 1st
Featuring ~ suicide references, depression, child molestation, sexual assault, flashbacks

Maddie and Summer were best friends, almost like sisters, since they were four. Six years ago, when the girls were seventeen, Maddie’s father was convicted of molesting Summer, which began when she was around nine.

Maddie wonders how she could not know what was happening to her bff. On the other hand she never thought it could be true, but as she listens to the court tapes there are some revelations and this is her journey of coming to terms with things and healing after attempting suicide.

Overall, this was as heavy hitting as you can expect. I do wish we had a little more on Summer's journey of healing, but it gives the reader a good look at how the perpetrators' family deals with the aftermath of something so despicable. It was interesting to see how the wife reacts vs the daughter. The process of healing when the person you trust the most in the world does the unthinkable seemed realistic. Through therapy, and with the love and support of her boyfriend, Jay, Maddie perseveres.

I was not prepared for the heaviness of this book. The Summer Before is told from the point of view of Maddie, the daughter of a sexual predator. Maddie six years post her father's conviction, listens to the trial transcript for the first time in an effort to heal from the trauma her father caused from the assault of her best friend.

Braley does a brilliant job of showing the damage a criminal can impose on not only his/her victim, but of his/her own family. These victims are often shamed and vilified and carry deep emotional baggage as a result of someone else's actions. I thought the POV choice was interesting and raw.

I am from Boston so I really enjoyed Braley's use of Boston for the setting as well as many famous landmarks, including the Citco sign and Park Plaza hotel.

I would have appreciated Marta's POV and I was surprised it was not explored, especially by Maddie.

Overall, this was a solid novel. It has many triggers so please review prior to reading. I look forward to reading more works from this author. Thank you Netgalley and Koehler Books!

Madeline and Summer are like sisters. but Summer is hiding a secret that that tears their friendship apart. years later they reconnect and try to make sense of the past.

This was a difficult book to read as it kept going back over what had happened in the past and it was told in a way which was difficult to become properly immersed in. I found the content pretty harrowing too so it wasn't an enjoyable read, unfortunately.

Madeline and Summer are more than best friends, they are like sisters from as far back as either can remember. But Summer was hiding a devastating secret from Madeline and it ended up tearing her family and the girls’ friendship apart. Years later, Madeline is still struggling to come to terms with what happened and her part in it. She finally confronts the past in an effort to heal in the present.
I thought this book was ok. Some parts seemed a little murky and I never felt like I got the full story. Most of the characters seemed one dimensional and I wish there had been some more back story and substance.

Thank you NetGalley for an early copy.

I loved this book. I am so picky about books involving recovery/occurrence of trauma because they can feel so inauthentic.
It’s really heartbreaking to watch Maddie go through this. I work with clients with severe trauma, and this feels so similar to journeys I see every day. It is EMOTIONAL so please be prepared for that. If you don’t like books about abuse and trauma don’t read this. But if you do, I highly recommend.

Trigger warnings for CSA and suicide. Also some semi spoilers in this review.

This was a well written book dealing with difficult subject matter. I found the writing itself engaging and well paced, and the protagonist flawed yet sympathetic.

I guess I had a little bit of a disconnect with the book as a whole because it is essentially a book about healing from trauma, but it felt like a lot of that process was skipped over. The majority of the book takes place at a time in her life when Maddie is finally starting to actually face these events from many years ago. We see these confrontations play out (her father, her mother, summer) on the page, but nothing actually changes based on any of them. I don't think that's a bad thing in itself, a large part of dealing with trauma can be recognising what you can't change/control, processing it and moving forward. The problem is that the processing part takes place off the page, with her doctor during a time jump we don't see. The end of the book is a skip into the future, where she still doesn't speak to her father or summer and ignores her mother's willful denial. The only difference really is how she perceives her life. The end just felt a little unsatisfying to me because we didn't experience the healing process with her, we didn't see how she got there.

Overall, wonderful writing on a difficult subject to write well, and worth a read. I'll definitely pick up anything else this author writes.

This was a very haunting book. You could viscerally feel Maddie coming apart and the internal fighting she was going through. I liked the book and the subject matter was interesting from the character point of views. But once the book hit the 60% mark, I just wasn't sure where it was going and it was anticlimactic. I was glad Maddie ran into Summer, but was there really any kind of resolution to anything? Her mother admitted nothing and didn't change anything, her dad stuck to his coldness, and Summer didn't absolve Maddie of any guilt of being a child and having no realization of what could be going on. So, I felt the last third of the book was just ok, and ended abruptly.

I usually don't like books about abuse, however, this story unraveled so beautifully that I couldn't put it down. I will definitely be looking for more from this author

4 ⭐️
tw: sexual assault & eating disorders & suicide
Summer and Maddie have been best friends since they were little kids. When a secret that Summer kept comes to light- it destroys both of them. will they ever be the same? this book takes us on a journey of healing from trauma. overall it was a super easy read- that i could relate to in certain aspects.

thank you to the publishers and netgalley for this ARC!

An extraordinary book that examines the far-reaching effects of abuse on those who weren’t necessarily the victims but became so by being in the vicinity of the abuser.

For Maddie, her life is collapsing around her as she tries to come to terms with the loss of her best friend and her innocence. Is it worth living if every moment is a nightmare she cannot wake up from?

Her only hope is to revisit the trial and her memories to try and understand what occurred and whether she can reconcile her present with the erosion of all that she believed to be true in her past.

Dianne has captured the agony, the loneliness and the self-recrimination of the protagonist in beautiful prose that sweeps you along, at once riveted and terrified that things may not end well for Maddie.

A beautiful albeit devastating novel which I highly recommend with the caveat that there are plenty of triggers for those who cannot handle difficult subject matters like sexual abuse, depression and suicidal thoughts. In which case, avoid. If you can, however, don’t miss out on this one!

Madeline and Summer were as Close as two friends could get.
Until the secret that Summer has been hiding, comes to the surface.
It changes everything, We get to experience what happens when somebody is abused not only to them, which are those closest to them. Written so beautifully
This is my first book by this author, and it will not be my last!

This is a book about trauma and loyalty. Madeline and Summer are childhood friends, as close as sisters. There is a power imbalance in their friendship, though, and Summer, raised by a single mother and poor, relies on the generosity of Madeline's family. She spends every weekend and their house, every evening after school, goes on vacation with them, and even lived with them for a while. When we meet Madeline, she is recovering from a suicide attempt and is lost and floundering. We realize that something happened to Summer when they were in middle school and Madeline was forced to choose sides. She forces herself to relive that time and look through the trauma with a more objective lens. This is a hard book to read, but it is compelling. Thank you, NetGalley, for the advanced copy.

5 stars.

Wow, where do I even start? First, a huge shoutout to the publisher and author for the advance copy. I don’t think I’ve ever been so thankful for a book that wrecked me like this one did.

I was hooked from page one and didn’t stop until I was done. I’m talking about reading while eating, and yep, that’s how I found myself bawling into a plate of late night Chinese food. This book is just so intense and raw, it digs into depression, how to deal with your past, and the painful process of moving on and forgiving. Every single word hit me right in the gut.

The friendships in this story are beautifully written, and they’re contrasted by the harsh reality of life’s cruelty. And don’t get me started on that freakin' bastard who wrecked everything. He had me fuming with how he messed up something so pure.

Honestly, I couldn’t have picked a better book to end my 2024 reading challenge. This one’s definitely earned a spot among my favorite reads of the year. If you’re up for a read that’ll have you crying and reflecting all at once, this is it.

was able to read his novel thru NatGalley. At the beginning I struggled to connect with the main character but as the story progressed I became more engaged and things became more clear. I was satisfied with the ending but want to add warning for those affected by sexual abuse.

This was a ripping-off-the-bandaid kind of book. It begins with Maddie jumping into finally processing the long-standing family trauma that she, and the rest of her family, have been shoving under the carpet for nearly a decade.

I found it to a really beautiful and complicated portrayal of sisterhood and family loyalties. And what happens to the people on the periphery of a life-altering betrayal.

I liked how the author played with the idea of "evil" and how that intersected with personal responsibility. This is a complicated story with no easy "whys," and a whole lot of victims.

Every character was a real person, very humanized -- very complicated. I really enjoyed Braley's writing, and the emotional rollercoaster she took us on with this story.

When Summer said "Lemonade" at their reunion, I wanted to bawl my eyes out. I was then a bit confused why Maddie later says they'll never be friends again. It seemed as though they both still have a lot of love for one another, and while I understand there is no easy way to reconnect... That felt unexplored to me.

Also -- in the first half of the book... there were a few illusions to Summer being dead? Bit shocked when she turned out to be alive.

Overall I found the writing to be fantastic, but it was a bit clunky in establishing the story. In particular, this passage really stood out to me as a LOT of exposition that could have been more nuanced.
“I know you want to know, hear her voice and what happened— Summer’s words. You never got to because you had to testify and were not allowed to be in the courtroom. I know that’s killing you, Mads.” His voice softened, and he cleared his throat. “You believe her now, just from the sentencing, but you didn’t until you stopped believing him. I know you want to hear her words, Maddie.”

Overall, I would rate this book 4.5 stars. I found this emotionally devastating, and covered some very heavy themes with nuance and care.

The premise of this book is good albeit heavy - the main character Summer deals with the guilt and betrayal of a family member abusing her best friend and how she herself handled it. She must confront these issues from her past and it doesn't go well. That being said, I thought the writing was not good at all. It was stilted and choppy writing. The story jumps in without any preamble which made it initially confusing.

I did like the interspersing of the trial, that was the best part, but I did not connect at all with the characters. The writing style was one of just TELLING rather than developing the characters.