Jackpot Summer
Elyssa Friedman
384 pages/11 hours 3 minutes
Berkley Publishing/PRH Audio
published June 11, 2024
Thanks to @BerkleyPub and @PRHAudio for my #gifted book and audiobook. #BerkleyPartner #Berkley #prhaudioinfluencer
This book was not what I was expecting. It’s a little heavier than the cover indicates. A family drama about four siblings packing up their family’s beach house after their mother’s death. A few of the siblings chip and buy lottery tickets and win. Between this and the feelings in selling the family house, there is a lot of life changes happening for the group
Told in alternating POVs of the siblings with mixed media thrown in. I was a fan of the “fantastic four’s” text chain.
It’s heartfelt and messy. Just like families are. The characters are complex and relatable. All the siblings are in different places in their lives and you get to see how they aren’t always in tune with each other. Something I think we all forget whether we are dealing with family or others.
Their mother was the one that could diffuse their issues and solve their problems, so it was a little bit of a study in how do the siblings move forward in their lives without her guidance.
While it was a little weightier than I anticipated, it also made me laugh. The banter and rivalry between the siblings added some entertainment and lightness to the otherwise serious issues.
Thérèse Plummer Did an excellent job narrating the siblings and bringing their idiosyncrasies and issues to life. I easily followed along and kept track of who was narrating each chapter.
If you are a fan of the messiness of family drama, this needs to be on your summer reading list.
About the book
After the Jacobson siblings win a life-changing fortune in the lottery, they assume their messy lives will transform into sleek, storybook perfection–but they couldn’t be more wrong.
The four Jacobson children were raised to respect the value of a dollar. Their mother reused tea bags and refused to pay retail; their father taught them to budget before he taught them to ride a bike. And yet, now that they’re adults, their financial lives are in disarray.
The siblings reunite when their newly widowed father puts their Jersey Shore beach house on the market. Packing up childhood memories isn’t easy, especially when there’s other drama brewing. Matthew is miserable at his corporate law job and wishes he had more time with his son; Laura’s marriage is imploding in spectacular fashion; Sophie’s art career is stalled while her boyfriend’s is on the rise; and Noah’s total failure to launch has him doing tech repair for pennies.
When Noah sees an ad for a Powerball drawing, he and his sisters go in on tickets while their brother Matthew passes. All hell breaks loose when one of the tickets is a winner and three of the four Jacobsons become overnight millionaires. Without their mother’s guidance, and with their father busy playing pickleball in a Florida retirement village, the once close-knit siblings search for comfort in shiny new toys instead of each other.
It’s not long before the Jacobsons start to realize that they’ll never feel rich unless they can pull their family back together.
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