The Five Star Weekend.

 

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After tragedy strikes, Hollis Shaw gathers four friends from different stages in her life to spend an unforgettable weekend on Nantucket. 

 
Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’s perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper. 

So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend”—one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife—she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie. 

The husband of Hollis’s childhood friend Tatum arranges for Hollis’s first love, Jack Finigan, to spend time with them, stirring up old feelings. Meanwhile, Tatum is forced to play nice with abrasive and elitist Dru-Ann, Hollis’s best friend from UNC Chapel Hill. Dru-Ann’s career as a prominent Chicago sports agent is on the line after her comments about a client’s mental health issues are misconstrued online. Brooke, Hollis’s friend from their thirties, has just discovered that her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. Again! And then there’s Gigi, a stranger to everyone (including Hollis) who reached out to Hollis through her blog. Gigi embodies an unusual grace and, as it hap- pens, has many secrets.

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I love books that deal with friendships. The Five Star Weekend is what it was, a story about friendships and grief. I knew that Elin Hilderbrand became one of my favorites through the years of reading her books. Hilderbrand has a way of hooking the reader to fall in love with the story and the characters. Anytime that I read her books, I feel connected with the characters, even the ones that I do not like. I thought that it was such a unique idea to invite her closest friends from various stages of her life to spend the weekend on Nantucket. Hollis needed this, needed to have her friends nearby after what happened to her husband. Like the others, it was risky inviting Gigi whom she met online and did not know that much about. It surprised me that Gigi accepted Holli’s invitation, especially after I found out about her secret. 

I enjoyed reading the book from each of friend’s points of view, a way to get to know each character better. When I read each character, it felt like I was reading different stories every time. Tatum, Brooke, Dru-Ann, and Gigi are all different, and at the same time; unique. I wondered how the four of them would get along, especially since Tatum and Dru-Ann had their issues with one another. Most of all, I wondered if they would have a good relationship with Gigi, who was the outcast of the other three. However, they take a liking to Gigi, but I knew if they found out what she did, they would not have the same feelings. I had a bad feeling that at some point Hollis would find out what happened, and if she did; would be the end of their friendship. All through the book, I was waiting for it to happen. 

I had The Five Star Weekend on hold for a few weeks, but it was worth the wait. All the girls went through so many emotions, and I could feel every one of them. One character that I had mixed emotions with was Hollis’s daughter, Caroline. I did not like how she treated her mother; it was as if she blamed her mother for what happened to her father. Caroline acted like she was the only one that lost somebody. I hoped that when Hollis asked her to film the event, they could find a way to fix their relationship. I love Nantucket, and after reading The Five Star Weekend I want to visit it even more. I could not get enough of this story, and there was a part of me that wished that it would never end. Even if you have not read any Elin Hilderbrand novels, I would highly recommend this one.