Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Started out looking to be a good enjoyable (easy?) read.
Characters needed to be better developed. All problems, questions answered too neatly, easily.
After 10 years absence from each others lives the characters are given the ability to set everything right in just a few days.
The ending was predictable, the last line nonsense. Give readers some credit, even a leisure "easy" read should offer more.
Rating: 
Summary: I make it a point to warn readers not to waste their money..
Review: on books like this. Geez, the whole book is full of characters "feeling" about the past. This kind of drivel makes me sick. It's an insult to my intelligence. DON'T waste your money on this pulp.
Rating:
Summary: A good beach read if you can ignore contrivance
Review: If I could ignore contrivance, unrealistic plots, and stupid dialogue, this would have gotten 5 stars from me. It is a great book to sit and read on the beach. But since I nit-pick every little detail in books, I have to tell you that this book will probably never be opened again.First, where to start. Maybe I'm a cynic, but I'm trying to picture all of America caring if Dr. Phil or the late Ann Landers had some dirt dug up on them about an affair from years earlier. I have a hard time imagining anyone caring. And if people did, I have a hard time imagining it ruining a career like it did for main character Nora Bridge. But somehow, she goes from being some huge celebrity to someone who has to hide out from the press. Because there is no celebrity gossip better than some B list radio show host who did something naughty. Anyhow, I digress. It is stupid, but it is integral to the entire book. I really liked the daughter Ruby at the beginning. She reminds me of a couple people I know, how they had made some bad choices, and their lives hadn't turned out the way they had wanted. But I was disliking the evolution the character took by the end of the book. Healing 11 years of anger and resentment with her mother was so nice to read, and made the story enjoyable. But it happened within a period of a couple of days. It seemed so unrealistic to me, but it was well-written and enjoyable. I wish the same could be said with her so called relationship with Dean. Ruby is reunited with Dean, who she hadn't seen for 10 years, when they were TEENAGERS, they basically have a couple of really short, shallow, unrevealing conversations, and end up declaring their love for each, having sex on the spot, then a post-coital decision to get married. Nothing was written about either of these two characters seems to suggest that they would impulse and get married to someone who they hadn't seen since childhood just because they happened to have good sex. It was a very weak part of the story and should have been thought through more. Finally, I have to be critical of one last point. The author describes a sailboat in terrible disrepair, and then Dean decides that his project is to restore it. Which he does in a matter of a day or two. Seriously. Why throw [stuff] in the story that is totally unrealistic? The boat she described would not have been a job for Dean to say, "Hmm, let's do this for an afternoon". It just bugs me. It was unneccesary to the story and unrealistic, which are two things I hate when I am trying to read a stupid beach novel to take my mind off of things for awhile.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful, Inspiring, Deep!
Review: Kristin Hannah has woven a beautiful story that is at once inspiring, tragic, and bittersweet. It is refreshing to find authors such as Kristin Hannah and Kirk Martin, author of Shade of the Maple, whose balance of vivid descriptions and realistic dialogue capture the deeper nature of human relationships within thought-provoking stories.
Rating: 
Summary: Summer Island
Review: How do you bridge the gap between a mother and daughter when the daughter's anger towards her mother spans more than a decade when the mother walks out on her family? More than ten years after walking out on her husband and two daughters, Nora Bridge is a famous talk show hostess that centers around family. However, eventually, a reporter discovers her buried secret and splashes it all over the papers. Nora's daughter Ruby is not doing well, either, as her career as a comedian is failing terribly. When Nora is injured in a car accident, Ruby's older sister Carolyn asks Ruby if she can go home to take care of their mother while she convalesces. What starts out as a plot by Ruby to use this time with her mother to write a tell-all expose, predictably turns into a situation which helps to right some of the wrongs. However, along the way, Ruby also learns some secrets about her father's past; and is also caught up in a potential romance with a childhood friend who also resides on the island. The author does a great job of interweaving all of these aspects into a story that turns out okay in the end, but still manages to avoid turning into a totally hokey sob story.
Rating:
Summary: Communication can save years of pain
Review: As I listened to this book on tape, I couldn't stop thinking of the family and friends I wanted to share this fabulous book with.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful 4 1/2 Star Story that left me in Tears...
Review: This has got to be one of the most touching stories I have ever read. A story about a mother who tries to get close to her daughter she hasn't seen in 10 years and the pain that ensues. A tide of emotions and trials that left me crying at the end. A true life look into a real family's heartbreak. I would've given this wonderful story 5 stars, but I thought the parts with Dean (the long lost boyfriend from yesteryear who shows up again to find Ruby)(Ruby is the daughter, 27 now) were unneccesary to the plot. He just shows up after 10 years and we the reader are supposed to accept him. I didn't like his character and thought he was weak and had no place in this tale. ~Nora Bridge walked out on her family 10 years ago. She left behind two daughters and a distraught husband at Summer Island, Washington. She is now a sucessful talkshow host on the radio and has a nationally syndicated newspaper column famous for honest advice and straightforward opinion. Nora's problem is that a tabloid has gathered long ago pictures of her with a man while she was married and a scandal is about to erupt. An accident leaves her unable to care for herself and she calls her eldest daughter who still keeps in touch. She in turns calls the youngest Ruby to help since she has her own family an cannot do it. The problem? Ruby HATES her. Ruby has spent the last ten years hating and dispising her mother for leaving.
But a deal from a magazine pays her handsomely to write a tell-all book on Nora and Ruby accepts. That means she will have to take up residence with Nora at Summer Island. The place of her childhood...the place where everything fell apart. Nora has 1 week to reconcile with Ruby and Ruby does not make it easy. But as time passes and their fights erupt, Ruby sees her mother for the first time. Truly sees her. What she sees is heartbreaking...Ruby is stunned. In turn Nora truly sees her daughter and desperately wants to have her in her life. She needs Ruby as much as Ruby needs her. They are lost souls trying to reconnect. Sometimes the truth is harder to accept than what you've devised it to be, but in the end, its what brings us together again.
How can Ruby write this now? Now when she had found her mother after all these years? A long lost love from years past comes calling again and she must make a decision...forgive and forget or live in anger... Truly a tearjerker. Well worth the money...made me happy that I am so close with my own mother...
Rating:
Summary: Love and Forgiveness
Review: Kristin Hannah is one of my favorite authors, and she once again delivers the kind of book I expect from her. Summer Island is the story of Nora Bridge, and her decision to leave her husband and children. The repercussions of that action are the basis for this book. Nora has become a radio personality, famous for her advice on love and family relationships. But her world come crumbling down when her past is revealed.
Kristin Hannah obviously loves the Pacific North West and her descriptions of the San Juan Islands is beautiful. She has a way of making you empathize with her characters even when you don't agree with what they are doing. Her depiction of the two Bridge daughters, Ruby and Caroline, and their very different reaction to their mother's betrayal rings true. I enjoyed the way she portrays sibling love in the two sister's, and the two Sloan brother's, whose lives are central to the Bridge family.
This book made me laugh, made me cry and made me think about my own family and their place in my life. I recommend it to all Kristin Hannah fans.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable story
Review: I enjoyed this story with the help of warm summer breezes in August. Good writing made this an enjoyable read, but the story left me wanting a little more from it. I am looking forward to reading another story from this author. It's definitely worth 3.5 stars!
Rating:
Summary: Sensitive
Review: Summer Island caught my attention from the opening line through to the end. This is a wonderful book exploring the truth about a family breakup and the relationship between a mother and her daughters. Nora Bridge, popular talk show hostess and columnist, has her reputation shattered by her past coming back to haunt her. With her life in ruins she escapes back to where it all started, Summer Island. Ruby, Nora's estranged daughter accompanies her mother not as a jesture of good will, but in order to further investigate her life and write an expose' to further her own career. Neither mother nor daughter is truly prepared to face the truth about the past. Eric and Dean Sloan have also come back to Summer Island to face their greatest fears. Eric is dying of cancer, brother Dean is the only one in his family who is willing to be there for him. Dean's memories of Summer Island are also wrapped in memories of Ruby Bridge, his first and only love and the life they never got to share. The Bridge family and the Sloan family come together to share a painful journey towards healing. The book is both sad and uplifting and left this reader wanting more. Truly an inspiring story.
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