📖 BOOK REVIEW⠀📚 Shoulder Season
AUTHOR: Christina Clancy @christinaclancyauthor
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press @stmartinspress
Stars: ⭐⭐⭐ + 🐰
Published: July 6, 2021
The Review 📚 Shoulder Season
✨ The Title/Cover Draw:
- The main premise of the life of a Playboy Bunny in the 80’s was one I was so interested in reading. Thank you to Netgalley and St Martin’s Press for the opportunity.
💜 What I liked:
- The first 40% of the book painted a picture of what it was like to live at the resort and being from a small town. The author really did her research here. I loved hearing about the process of being employed at a resort (different from the mansion).
😱 What I didn’t like:
- The last half of the book was a disappointment to me, almost like it kept trying to keep the interest in these dramatic moments. It was marketed as a tragic turning point, but it had a few “is this it?” moments before the tragedy finally was revealed. It made the ending a little tedious. If there was more about the resort and the other Bunnys it would have made me happier.
💁♀️ The Characters:
- Sherri and her friend Rhonda interview to work at the Playboy resort in Wisconsin, although Rhonda doesn’t make it. We follow what Sherri goes through and how she meets the men in her life.
🚦 My face at the end:🤔
💭 3 Reasons to Read:
- Interesting portrayal of a “family friendly” resort
- 80’s vibes
- Love triangle
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Received from Netgalley.
📘 Summary 📚 Shoulder Season
The small town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin is an unlikely location for a Playboy Resort, and nineteen-year old Sherri Taylor is an unlikely bunny. Growing up in neighboring East Troy, Sherri plays the organ at the local church and has never felt comfortable in her own skin. But when her parents die in quick succession, she leaves the only home she’s ever known for the chance to be part of a glamorous slice of history. In the winter of 1981, in a costume two sizes too small, her toes pinched by towering stilettos, Sherri joins the daughters of dairy farmers and factory workers for the defining experience of her life.
Living in the “bunny hutch”—Playboy’s version of a college dorm, surrounded by a twelve-foot high barbed-wire fence (to keep the men out, and the girls in)—Sherri gets her education in the joys of sisterhood, the thrill of financial independence, the magic of first love, and the heady effects of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But as spring gives way to summer, Sherri finds herself caught up in a romantic triangle––and the tragedy that ensues will haunt her for the next forty years of her life.
Shoulder Season follows Sherri from her fledgling days as a bunny, when she tries to reinvent herself before she even knows who she is, to the woman she becomes years later. From the Midwestern prairie to the California desert, from Wisconsin lakes to the Pacific Ocean, this is a story of what happens when small town life is sprinkled with stardust, and what we lose—and gain—when we leave home. It’s about the brief but intoxicating experiences of our youth, and how they have the power to shape the rest of our lives. With a heroine to root for and a narrative to get lost in, Shoulder Season is a sexy, evocative tale, drenched in longing and desire, that captures a fleeting moment in American history with nostalgia and heart.