The Summer We Lost Her (Another STINKER!)
Well, it was only a matter of time before another stinker came along! Lol this book SUCKED! 😩
So the entire reason I grabbed this book was because of the title; my pitiful ass thought that "lost" insinuated a loss -- that this family's daughter had passed away. (Spoiler alert: that wasn't the case, at all).
⚠️ (And, while we're on the topic of spoilers -- incoming spoilers for the entire book!) ⚠️
Our story revolves around the Sorenson family. 38-year-old mother, Elise, has been training for the Olympics for the better part of her life. Meanwhile, father, Matt, is the primary caregiver to their 8-year-old daughter, Gracie. The family plan on taking a vacation to their summer cabin -- partly so they can sell it in order to continue financing Elise's equestrian dream.
However, while visiting, their daughter is abruptly abducted, forcing Elise and Matt to see if their marriage can endure this trial...
This book is awful, for a number of reasons, but if I truly had to sum up why, it is because the characters are awful. And the characters are awful because they don't really undergo any character development.
Like, take Elise, the mother -- a mother who would rather forfeit her relationship with her family in favor of her dream. For goodness sake -- the story opens with Elise having an accident because she got on a horse while nearing the third trimester of her pregnancy. The accident causes Gracie to develop cerebral palsy, a lifelong disability. Present day opens with Elise missing Gracie's first school play because her horse refuses to board the plane! She has already missed years of her daughter's life to training, and what's more, Gracie's kidnapping is ultimately HER fault!
Mother of the Year award goes to...! 🥴
Aside from that, Elise's attitude towards her own parents is disgusting. Her father cheated on her mother -- a woman who believed what he told her, left her life for him, was nothing but a devoted wife and mother -- and because teenage Elise was embarrassed by her, her mother felt she no longer had a purpose. Elise's mother kills herself. As a result, Elise stops talking to her father for over two decades, but when he wants to reunite, Elise suddenly starts villainizing her mother to justify reconnecting with him!
Here are actual lines from the book:
"For the first time in her life, the image of her mother sitting in the car with the motor running brought ... fury.
"How could she? Rosamunde was a parent. ... She had a daughter who needed her [kind of like how Gracie needs her own mother lol]. ... Who, as Rosamunde must have realized, would misdirect her resentment ... at her only remaining parent, a man she would have no choice but to hate [hating her mother for killing herself, but not her father for causing it].
"Rosamunde didn't take away one parent from Elise; she took away both."
"Had Elise done anything remotely as despicable with Gracie? [I don't know -- maybe being away from her own daughter for years??]"
"... she'd been running from the wrong person [her dad, insinuating her mom was the real "wrong" person]."
I just felt this was a revolting note to end on. For one, to treat Elise's mother, who had done nothing but love and revolve her world around her family, in such a manner, but then for Elise to refuse to hold herself accountable for her own mistakes as a mother. Just zero sense of awareness -- from ANY of the characters! 🤦♀️
Matt, the husband, is no better. He spends the entire novel chasing after his ex-girlfriend next door than he does his wife. Matt even ends up sleeping (yes, just sleeping) with this ex (plus a few kisses) while Gracie is missing, AND at the same time that his ex is dating someone! Someone who is helping Matt sell their family cabin!! Despite Elise eventually finding out about it, on her own, she decides to give her husband a "pass" for the sake of their family's fresh start:
"Perhaps, just this once, she could suspend judgement and look to the future. But just this once."
The book is MEANT to finish off on a happy note -- Gracie is found unharmed and Elise even gives up her Olympic dream in favor of her family -- but it feels like anything BUT 😩 Because, it also ends with Elise refusing to forgive the abductor -- despite the fact he never harmed Gracie and was screwed over by her grandfather-in-law -- proving that Elise ultimately learned nothing...:
"Elise thought back to her conversation with Laurel on the plane. About forgiveness [this was a mother who lost her daughter to a drunk driver and didn't know if she should forgive him; she does]. To forgive Andy [the abductor], no matter how tough his childhood, was not only irresponsible ... but catastrophically complacent. ... nearly as abhorrent as the offense itself."
Yet, in Elise's next breath, she states:
"Whether she forgave herself for her decision [getting on the horse while pregnant with Gracie] ... was and always would be immaterial. What she thought didn't matter. ... Explain [to Gracie] that she would spin the world backward if it meant she could undo that moment. And hope that Gracie had it in her heart to forgive her mother's choice."
So, in the end, Elise expects everyone else to compensate for her, yet she cannot seem to do a damn thing for anyone else! Not even her own mother, who did nothing except be an upstanding mother, is exempt from Elise's hypocrisy! Anyway, as stated, an absolutely grotesque novel that was purely written in the hopes it would hit the big screen 🤮
