Michelle Gable

"Based on the real-life story of Alicia Corning Clark"--Jacket.

A Novel

The Summer I Met Jack

Eleni Maria

WOW….I picked this up because it was in the B&N book annex and it included the words Kennedy and Hyannisport - two of my favorite subjects. This was a real treat - each chapter title is a headline from the 50s and 60s. Michelle Gable did an excellent job with her research and telling this story. I think the positive reviews I’ve read do the book more justice so I’ll leave it at that. As someone who has always been fascinated by the Kennedy Family, this gave me an entirely new perspective. Awesome summer read.

Melissa Deitrick

I personally was not please with how the Kennedy’s were portrayed in this novel, regardless of how accurate or inaccurate it was. By a quarter of the way through, I truly could not stand Jack Kennedy’s portrayal and had mentioned so to a friend who had been interested in purchasing this book. The Kennedy family is written as extreme protagonists and the only reason I could even bare to finish was that 1. It was an audible and 2. I couldn’t figure out why everyone was so obsessed with it. 

I’m very pleased that I didn’t spend extra money on this novel, as I had originally planned to do before my library check it out for me. 

Though it DOES raise questions as to whether all was what it seemed when it came to this American family, I don’t see the point that many, many folks wrote on “how sad Jack Kennedy must have been if this was all true indeed”. From the POV of our narrator Alicia, Jack is extremely entitled, cunning, flirty, and knows he can get away with murder. So many times throughout I was yelling at Alicia to wise the heck up and leave his sorry behind. It is portrayed as such a typical mentally abusive and manipulative relationship that I couldn’t help but think anyone who thought the relationship between Jack and Alicia was “romantic” by any means of the word was slightly demented and in a similar manipulative relationship themselves. 

If you enjoy reading about the Kennedy family, do not pick up this novel or waste your time. 

Even when I WAS interested in finding out more about Alicia Darr and her suitors/husbands over time, I could hardly find anything through the inter web. Even from a historical stand-point this book is thin.

Lauren Lopez

I will begin by saying this was not what I was expecting. Alicia, the main character, is not even a likable person. She is very self-centered and simply strives to be wealthy and well-known. I expected the love between her and Jack Kennedy to be a “can’t live without you” kind of love, but it did not even feel like they really cares for one another. The plot was very slow, and I was disappointed that it did not touch on how she reacted to his death. There were parts of the story that were interesting, especially toward the end - the parts relating to the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy family, but it was a big let down over all. 

I gave it 3 stars because the idea was a great one, an interesting one, but I don’t think it was delivered very well.

Lisa Miller

DNF at 176 pages. 

Since giving up on this book, I've read a review that "This is the cynical hate-read of the summer." I think they were referring to hate of the Kennedy's, as this book thoroughly denigrates every member of the famous family, however I found myself hate-reading the book itself and decided it wasn't worth my time.

The book is about Alicia Darr, who had a romance with JFK starting 1950, and according to this book was engaged to him, but was broken off when he found out she was Jewish, she then went to Hollywood and had affairs/marriages with other famous people. A thin current day thread throughout is about trying to track someone down who could be a child/grandchild of Darr and JFK.
As of page 177, which is 1/3 of the way through the book, Alicia and JFK are still in the initial romance stage and screwing each other whenever they can. 

So this isn't historical fiction. While I was hoping for something similar to The Paris Wife this is actually a romance novel with the Kennedy's and a tragic WWII past thrown in for good measure. What bothered me from the start was that the dialogue and actions of the characters are similar to those found in romance novels and not realistic and I could not willingly suspend my belief. Then as the plot played out, from what I read of it, was obviously a bad Cinderella rags-to-riches romance and Alicia a manic-pixie-dream-girl stereotype.

I was curious about how this book even came to be and what if anything was true. Reading the authors note at the end she says the inspiration came from when her agent sent her a link to a newspaper article asking if Alicia and JFK have a 'love-child' when she was supposed to be writing a different book. She then decided Alicia was going to be the protagonist of her next book. So this book is a hypothesis to make a plausible argument that the story is true, she made many leaps and assumptions, and fudged names and dates (all her words not mine). 

And what is true? Well not much can be found about Alicia Darr online with a quick search. I can't believe the author decided to include a two page 'About Jack' section (as if he isn't one of the most famous men in modern history) at the end which reads like a personal letter from someone who knew him personally with pearls such as: "Though Jack wasn't the best husband, he genuinely loved being a father." And yet NOTHING about Alicia despite having flown everywhere and read everything in research for this book. Wouldn't it have been nice to have included something about her protagonist, about what she had found out, contradictions and all?

The Summer I Met Jack A Novel

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