So needless to say, I absolutely had to read Elin Hilderbrand's Summer of '69, partially inspired because it was the year she and her twin brother were born as well.
Every summer the Foley-Levin family looks forward to spending the season at their grandmother's home in downtown Nantucket. But this year, things are different, and only 13-year-old Jessie will be in Nantucket with her mother and grandmother (and weekend visits from her father). Jessie's oldest sister Blair is stuck in Boston, awaiting the birth of twins and dealing with suspicions about her husband, an astrophysics professor at MIT. Her outspoken other sister, Kirby, already participating in civil rights protests while in college, has taken a job on Martha's Vineyard for the summer so she can further express her independence. And the greatest source of anxiety is Jessie's brother, Tiger, who has been deployed to Vietnam.
As Jessie tries to navigate what it's like to be on the cusp of womanhood amidst a status-conscious grandmother and a mother wracked with guilt and worry about the fate of her son, the rest of the family experiences their share of drama as well. And as the crises and positive moments occur, they do so against an historical backdrop of events, from the Apollo 11 landing on the moon to the Chappaquiddick tragedy and, of course, the fears caused by the Vietnam War.
I read Hildebrand's 28 Summers last month and absolutely fell in love with it. I was a little less enamored of this one. I was hoping for more of a laid-back, beachy vibe with this book, but the juxtaposition of family and relationship drama along with historical events didn't quite work for me. Despite all of the different things happening to the characters, I never quite felt emotionally connected to them or the story as a whole.
I do love the way Hildebrand tells a story, however, so I'm still going to be plowing through her backlist!
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