That Summer, Jennifer Weiner

A well-written, almost wrapped in a tidy bow book about the hard-hitting ripple effects of a #MeToo event.

SPOILER ALERT

That Summer read close to home; I could see how it happened, the era of the good-old-boys, the "she wanted it" times we lived in (the 80's), and the shame and guilt felt by the victim thinking the assault was somehow her fault.

Jennifer Weiner did an exceptional job of intertwining the events of the past with the current fallout, how the victim finds her perpetrators, showing how damaged, or in one case, "un" damaged they became over their deeds.

A book about privilege, about loss (due to events that happened in youth), about holding people accountable, about finding the strength to move on even if it takes decades to make the first step toward that, about one man's possible inability to move beyond and another's seemingly unwillingness to accept responsibility, the, it was so long ago and I'm not that person anymore mentality.

That Summer is a sad, easy written (not an in-your-face slap) where the reader is sucked in by the lazy settings, the commonality of the lives until it culminates into one big sad mess of reality.

While That Summer is obviously written more for the female audience, a similar book written for the male perspective could serve future generations well.