Review of That Summer by Jennifer Weiner

Content warning: sexual assault and stigma towards survivors

I wanted to read a book that touches on rape and the struggles of surviving it in a somewhat realistic way – but also had hopeful, non-gloomy vibes, and didn’t follow a killer-revenge plot.

Believe it or not, such a thing can exist, and That Summer fits the bill.

It’s a drama with not-so-subtle commentary on patriarchy and classism. The story beats were pretty predictable,^[1] but Weiner approaches serious topics and ideas with tact, without it weighing down the entertaining nature of the story.

The time jumps may give you a bit of whiplash, but That Summer is not a cerebral mindfuck. Nor was it written without any thought about the real world. Weiner’s prose sometimes has fun and surprising imagery, and the descriptions of food are incredibly vivid.

So there you go – a novel about rape that isn’t so dark you’d think someone snuffed out the sun. The darkest thing about That Summer is the barrage of one-star reviews calling it “woke” for featuring sympathetic gay men, a working-class love interest, and a rape survivor. Because fuck survivors, amirite?

Just let me have my “tree-trunk thighed” John Candy lookalike, and I’ll be on my way out.

P.S.: Thank you, Jennifer Weiner, for a happy book about a survivor, even if it made half your fanbase angry. ♡