Big Summer Book Review
**This post contains spoilers.**
When beautiful, wealthy Drue Cavanaugh mysteriously returns to Daphne Berg’s life six years after a traumatic viral video incident, she has a grand request. Daphne, a now successful plus-size Instagram influencer, is skeptical of Drue’s request to be the maid-of-honor in her upcoming wedding, after years of body shaming and torment at the hands of Drue. When Drue is found dead the night before her wedding, Daphne is determined to solve the case of her unlikely friend. Big Summer delves into the deep depths of relationships, body positivity, the complexities of social media and what matters most.
A Review of Big Summer
Author: Jennifer Weiner | Pages: 364 | Available here
At first glance, Drue seems to have it all —friends, beauty, wealth. But, her life is quickly not what it seems. Drue’s father has been absent her entire life, having multiple affairs and fathering countless children. Her family’s business is going under. Even her wedding is an elaborate, sponsored Instagram sham in an attempt to unlock her trust fund and help save her father’s business. What at first glance may seem desirable, the reader soon learns that Drue is largely unhappy, trapped in a life that she hates. Is she truly trying to be a better person? Is this yet another façade for beautiful, yet manipulative Drue? While Drue’s death prevents us from knowing her true intentions, it sets the reader on a path to uncovering the meaning of true relationships amidst the world of social media.
““The trick of the Internet, I had learned, was not being unapologetically yourself or completely unfiltered; it was mastering the trick of appearing that way. It was spiking your posts with just the right amount of real… which meant, of course, that you were never being real at all.””
The Role of Social Media in Today’s Society
Big Summer reads as a cautionary tale for social media. While social media has grown to be a larger than life entity in our daily lives, we cannot blame the internet entirely for today’s unrealistic ideals and comparison game. Social media doesn’t initiate this way of thinking and, subsequently, your feelings about it, it provides a platform for amplification. Before the age of social media, the same images were presented, just in different forms. Instead of on Facebook and through filtered Instagram posts, women were told to take up less space via commercials, print advertisements, and posters of their favorite celebrities. Television coverage of thin, long-legged Victoria’s Secret models were broadcast during primetime television spots. In the 90s, Cindy Crawford appeared on Pepsi ads and Kate Moss posed on Calvin Klein billboards. Each one of these visuals was a subconscious nod to society’s ideals. Young girls grew up believing that this is what a beautiful woman should look like.
The truth is: this evil existed anyway. Social media is not a unique evil. In fact, if the internet evaporated tomorrow and with it, the apps and platforms individuals have become so accustomed to using, people would still find a way to market their particular kind of ideology. What social media has done, instead, is create an environment in which you can connect in real-time, with the added benefit of the anonymity of your computer screen. Social media has provided a platform for people to hide behind their keyboards and pass quick, (and often) errant judgments with ease. With this speed of deliverability comes an ease of communication, but also, a powerful echo chamber. In this chamber, there is no room for the middle perspective. Instead, the people who scream the loudest are the voices and beliefs that are amplified and resonated the loudest. This repetition exists inside a closed system, where people simply hear, read, and consume what they want to and insulate themselves from all rebuttal.
Algorithms, such as the kind commonly used on Facebook and Instagram, are intended to create a curated feed to reflect what you want to see, your ideological preferences. The goal is engagement—increasing the time that you spend on an app, who you connect with, and who connects with you. It is unavoidable. It was programmed this way.
Daphne’s experience in Big Summer was not unique. An incident that occurred in a small bar, with an audience of less than twenty onlookers, suddenly became a viral video spread across the internet. But while some would condemn this behavior, she chose to use it to her benefit and use it to create her body positivity platform. Without taking the bad with good, she would not have been able to develop the audience she ultimately used to address body shaming and promote the message of body positivity.
The book also provides valuable insight into what goes on behind the screens. For Drue, it’s about putting on a show, presenting an image of herself that is not representative of the true person behind the profile. Her wedding was, at its core, a cash grab to support her father’s business. Her marriage to Stuart Lowe nothing more than a publicity stunt to use their massive combined social media followings to make money.
This is in stark contrast to Daphne. On Daphne’s social media, she is who she says that she is—a plus-size influencer. She confesses that she doesn’t have all of the answers, but she wants to continue to be true to herself and remain authentic. But, we also see the real life of a social media influencer—the forced engagement, the constant tether to technology, the constant struggle to find the “right amount” of real.
““I was going to eat to nourish myself, I was going to exercise to feel strong and healthy, I was going to let go of the idea of ever being thin, once and for all, and live my life in the body that I had.””
Body Struggles & The Will to Rise Above
One of the most endearing parts of Daphne Berg’s character is her relatability. For most females reading along, there was likely one passage that you connected to inherently. Have you tried fad diets unsuccessfully? Have you look into the mirror and disliked what you saw? Were you victim to the cruel torment of online criticism or, even worse, the criticism of family or friends?
We’ve all experienced our own personal struggles with our body image to varying degrees. In this way, Daphne is highly relatable. She’s honest and the reader gets a glimpse into her mind as the author gives small story asides to the thoughts running through Daphne’s head. When someone calls her brave on an Instagram post, she doesn’t respond with a quick and quirky answer. She wants to delve into it. She wants to give a thoughtful answer that is more than the cliche phrases on the internet because she knows that we struggle with our own self-image as well.
Daphne shares with us the exact moment that her body image innocence was broken. When her grandmother comes to babysit her for a summer, she immediately critiques young Daphne and puts her on a restrictive diet and forces her to exercise. Before this summer, Daphne had a positive relationship with food—creating memories of eating desserts with her father. Her grandmother stripped that from her in a moment that most of us can relate to. When was the moment you realized you were aware of your body’s size? For many of us, there was a pivotal moment when calories suddenly came to exist, that we were told that the size of clothes that we wore mattered, that women were expected to take up less space. Each of us can see ourselves in Daphne in that moment and we can feel for her in a true moment of authenticity.
““Everyone tries to put the best versions of themselves across. To fake it. And when they’re not doing that, they’re sitting behind their screens, passing judgment and feeling superior to whoever they think’s being sexist or racist that day.””
The Depth of Relationships & What Matters Most
At its core, Big Summer is about the depth of relationships and appreciating what you have. While it may seem that Drue has an “ideal” life, before her death, she opens up to Daphne about the struggles she’s faced throughout her entire life with her father. In several rare, humanizing moments, Drue casts aside her image and truly follows her heart and that is when the reader sees her at her most real and authentic. When Drue accompanies Daphne and her father on their weekly dates, she states that it was one of the best days of her life. Drue often found herself torn between who she really wanted to be and becoming the daughter that was worthy of her father’s attention. It was a struggle that faced up until her untimely death.
For Daphne, she realizes the strength of the relationship that she has with her parents. While she frequently found herself chasing outside approval, both in her relationship with Drue and as her role as an Instagram influencer, she realizes that what matters most is the approval of your close friends and family. Big Summer is a lesson in the futility of chasing after people and the importance of holding your true relationships close.
Conclusion
While Weiner’s Big Summer is an enjoyable beach read, it does an excellent job of tackling the deeper issues of body positivity, female friendships, and what it means to be truly happy. For who struggles with finding true happiness, this book is a must-read.
