WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE?  THE FIVE STAR WEEKEND

I have never been to Nantucket and probably will never go there.  I am not at all a beach person in general and don’t particularly like summer.  And yet, I must confess to a secret (well, used to be secret) pleasure in the novels of Elin Hilderbrand, who has made a career of writing about Nantucket, the summer people and the year round people who spend their time there.  She’s spread her wings a little, writing about winter on Nantucket as well, but her strength has always been her love of summers on the island.   I love her books because she does what she does so well.  When I’m looking for a comfort read, where I know there will be a happy ending (often multiple happy endings, because there are usually several characters whose stories we follow through the books), where I know the characters will be somewhat flawed but generally likable and relatable, and there will be a community of people surrounding the main characters, grounding them in what feels like a real world.  There will not be gruesome violence (of course, since I love Jo Nesbo, I am not unalterably opposed to gruesome violence in its place), there will not be tangled plots that I have to use a lot of brainpower to figure out (again, sometimes that’s what I’m looking for, but sometimes it’s too much), there will not be any aspects of the book, from opening to conclusion, that will make me want to throw the book at the nearest wall in a fury.     The most recent book of hers I read is The Five Star Weekend, and it is an excellent Elin Hilderbrand novel.  You have the main character, Hollis, a famous and well to do food blogger who originally grew up poor on Nantucket and moved into the wider world as soon as she could, but who still returns every year to her family home and her roots, you have her somewhat difficult young adult daughter, Caroline, you have four of her friends from different phases of her life, each of them with issues and backstories of their own, and then you start the ball rolling.  Hollis’ husband dies suddenly in a car accident and she’s thrown for a terrific loop.  As an attempt to regain her equilibrium, she picks up an idea from another blogger, which is to have a “Five Star Weekend,” where she would invite her closest friends from her childhood, her twenties, her thirties and midlife, and spend a weekend in their company, reminding herself of who she is and who her support network consists of.  Naturally, all kinds of issues arise during the weekend which Hollis didn’t plan (one woman is awaiting a breast cancer diagnosis, one is in the process of being canceled online, one is having serious marital difficulties and one is there for reasons Hollis doesn’t even suspect), and – because this is an Elin Hilderbrand novel – all these issues get resolved, one way or another.  There are mouthwatering descriptions of food, because Hollis is determined to make this into a big event for her Instagram followers, and there are plenty of descriptions of different aspects of Nantucket which make it sound like the loveliest place in the world, and there is a happy ending, or rather, several happy endings, one of which feel unearned or plastered on at the last minute.  It was a fun read, and I zipped through it in a day or two.   The high concept here got me thinking, as I suppose it will get most of its readers thinking.  How many of us would be able to come up with four friends from different eras of our lives?  What would it be like to get those friends together, and would they be able to get along with each other (this is not a guarantee in The Five Star Weekend)?  What kinds of things would I do with my four friends for a weekend of just us?  I don’t have answers to any of these questions, but I appreciate that a book I read for comfort also gave me something to think about (though not something I would have to think too hard about – this is still summer, after all).     Maybe I wouldn’t be able to pull off a five star weekend, but I like the concept and I loved the way Hilderbrand ran with it.  For a fun summer read, check out The Five Star Weekend.