The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand: Book Review

The Five-Star Weekend has a recent widow gathering four friends from different stages in her life to spend one unforgettable weekend on Nantucket.

Acknowledgments:

Thank you to my local library for purchasing this audiobook.

From The Publisher:

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.

The Five-Star Weekend is a surprising and captivating story about friendship, love, and self-discovery set on Nantucket. It will be a weekend like no other.

My Thoughts:

If I could only read one author for the rest of my life Elin Hilderbrand would be my choice. Her books have unique and well-written characters with interesting backstories. I love the beachy vibe of her Nantucket settings and the fact that Nantucket characters are frequently mentioned in her successive books. I’ve come to equate summer with her latest release. Her latest book is The Five-Star Weekend and it did not disappoint.

Hollis Shaw is a well-known food blogger with a perfect life. She’s married to Matthew, a well-respected heart surgeon, and is mother to Caroline a film student. Then Matthew is suddenly killed in a car accident and the life she has known changes in an instant.

Several months later, Hollis needs something to bring her out of her depression. She learns of another woman who had lost her husband who held a Five-Star Weekend inviting four friends from various points in her life. The weekend was a success in allowing this woman to move on. Hollis decides to hold her own Five-Star Weekend and invites four women – one from her childhood, one from college, one from the time Caroline was growing up and one from the present. This latter choice is a woman she has never met but has interacted with online. Caroline is hired to film the weekend.

Without giving anything away, the weekend is full of surprises. The reader learns what each of these women is presently experiencing in their lives and we see how each woman interacts with others in the group. There is a feeling of escape over this weekend and great food and lots of drinking are featured. Secrets are revealed. The book is propulsive and high-entertaining. You’ll want to read this book in one sitting.

I chose to listen to the audiobook version of the book which was narrated by Erin Bennett. Her performance was exceptional and captured the author’s gift of storytelling. I highly recommend the audiobook version to those that appreciate this format.

Some of the Other Books I’ve Reviewed Written by Elin Hilderbrand:

The Hotel Nantucket

Golden Girl

The Blue Bistro