Book Review | The Five Star Weekend By Elin Hildebrand

The Five Star Weekend

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.

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.

Characters

• Hollis Shaw – main character; recent widow.  Famous food blogger
• Matthew – Hollis’s deceased husband; heart surgeon
• Caroline – Hollis and Matthew’s daughter; studied film

The Four Stars:

• Dru-Ann – Hollis’s friend from college; now a famous sports agent
• Tatum – Hollis’s friend from growing up
• Brooke – Hollis’s friend from when she was pregnant and raising kids
• Gigi – Hollis’s friend from her website, she became close to her once Matthew had died

Other Characters

• Elektra – ex friend of Brooke and Hollis’s; bully
• Jack – Hollis’s high school boyfriend
• Kyle – Tatum’s husband
• Charlie – Brooke’s husband; multiple sexual harassment suits against him

My Review

I love an Elin Hilderbrand book.  These are such great beach reads.

The drama between the friend groups was entertaining. The story line played out and ended on a positive note.  The in depth descriptions of the food dishes she was making made me want to join in on her party.  There is nothing healthy about majority of the relationships in this book; fair warning, but I think that’s why I found it entertaining.  I will never own a million dollar home in Nantucket, so being able to join in on the fun was enjoyable.