The Summer of Broken Rules by K.L. Walther

Meredith Fox has been going to Martha's Vineyard for the summer as long as she can remember. But this summer is the first one back since the death of Meredith's sister. It will all be overwhelming, but even more since since the entire extended family will be together for her cousin's big wedding.

Unfortunately, Meredith's longtime boyfriend unexpectedly dumped her two weeks before the wedding, leaving her dateless. Luckily, she has the perfect distraction. Her family has a tradition of playing the ultimate game of Assassin every summer, and this year it will take place during the week of wedding festivities.

But her target just happens to be a very cute groomsman. She's determined to not let herself get distracted, not let herself be lost in another doomed relationship. But as the week progresses, she can't help falling for him, which may cost her not only the game, but also her heart.

Meredith's family's annual game of assassin at Martha's Vineyard during a summer wedding is the perfect chance to honor her sister's legacy, and finally join the world again. But when she forms an alliance with a cute groomsman, she's at risk of losing both the game… and her heart.

I’ve heard a lot of rave reviews and my sister loves this book, so was excited to pick it up. Quick spoiler alert: I highly enjoyed it, had been expecting more, but definitely understand its broad appeal. I’d probably reread by a body of water, and am glad I bought it for that purpose, but also don’t think it was quite as distinctive as I’d expected considering its hype. It was sweet and fun and I liked reading it.

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In all honesty, I’ve read this plot before. This exact subplot—grieving friend or sibling off for a summer—has been done many a-time, and dressed up in more elaborate ways. I hate to say it’s a gimmick because grief is different for everybody and always significant, but I do think that nowadays that plot needs some more heft to it in order to be the main, driving force for me. We already kind of have The Sky Is Everywhere and Twenty Boy Summer, and it’s wrapped in the same way. Sister was perfect, life is never the same, random epiphanies, etc,. Hate to say it, but there’s a formula we’ve already seen as a method for eventual closeness in the (inevitable) romance.

Instead, the Assassin game and wedding preparations were more interesting to me in The Summer of Broken Rules, which reminded me a lot of the goofiness of Save the Date by Morgan Matson.

Essentially, this young adult contemporary follows Meredith as she’s visiting Martha’s Vineyard for the first time since her sister passed away thanks to a not-her-fault drunk driving incident. Her cousin’s getting married, and the week-long preparations include a family and wedding-party-wide game of Assassin fought with water guns, which had always been Claire’s (sister’s) favorite tradition. Pretty much as soon as she gets there, Meredith meets—and accidentally injures—a très-cute groomsman, Wit, and the duo become completely obsessed with each other over the course of the game. Hijinks, romance, and sporadic fears of speeding cars for emotional impact ensue. (There was quite a lot of car speeding moments to the extent that it didn’t fully feel realistic; I have never been around this many speeding teenagers, personally.)

As someone who’s extremely close to my family, I love a big, sprawling family moment, even if it was hard to keep track of names. Her family owns but also rents (?) a giant plot of land every summer called the Farm, where the wedding is being held. It is full of oysters and tanning moments and outdoor showers, which made me long for my own seaside vacation sense of ease. Timing-wise, I couldn’t have read The Summer of Broken Rules at a more perfect time; it was an ideal adieu to summertime ahead of Labor Day Weekend.

Right now, books centered around traditional summer vacation destinations, and the leisure of a spot you return to time and time again, are also big because of The Summer I Turned Pretty, Happy Place, et. al, so I understand why this book has soared to popularity on BookTok and similar.

I personally love those kinds of rhythms, so will always pick up a book like this hoping for an atmosphere that summons up the best, most relaxed summer feelings, which this one did successfully. It reminded me a lot of Happy Place by Emily Henry in that regard, capturing the sheer adoration someone has for a place like that.

The bride and groom announce a giant game of Assassin to take place over that week, and Meredith and Wit (boi) immediately pair up in an alliance. By night two, they are sleeping in each others’ beds and pretty much head over heels.

Meredith was likable, although flawed, the ideal combo of any YA heroine. Wit was pretty much a cardboard cutout, but his Hinge bio would say he was competitive about “anything” because he quickly got really into the game. They both did, but I’d say Meredith’s reasoning—to honor her sister—made more sense, and this became somewhat important later in the book when they try to equivocate two upsets in a “one of these things is not like the other” kind of way. It was kind of hard to tell how serious Assassin was at a given time.

They were hot and heavy from the get go. I actually loved how affectionate and touchy they were, because it came off as a specific characterization; at one point, Wit points out how affectionate Meredith is as a person, and it’s beyond accurate. I loved that particular texture added to their characters. Because of that, them immediately hooking up did make sense, although the instalove and feelings of connectedness definitely gave me some eye-rolling moments. Girl! You have known this boy for two days! I haven’t experienced that sheer amount of non-tension (they get together immediately) in a book in a long time, so it was somewhat disorienting to me and more characteristic of early ‘10s young adult.

In fairness, I should have realized going in that, because the book takes place over five days and centers on them winning each other’s hearts, it was going to be total rom-com instalove energy. That’s personally just the exact opposite of how I’m wired, but I appreciated the conflicts that this brought up with Meredith’s friends of her being all-in on guys instead of her friends.

That being said, I loved the giddy, drunk-off-each-other vibe they were projecting, and thought the romance was still really fun overall even if my logical brain could not handle the timeline and intimacy. The dialogue and dialogue beats, both in romantic aspects and normally, was extremely corny. Ex: everyone will collectively groan, and the use of these kinds of devices was repetitive enough to start to feel cringey. The writing was fine overall. No lines really stood out to me, which is largely my favorite quality of a book, so that’s an aspect of my personal taste that wasn’t fulfilled. That being said, this book didn’t really need that because it was all about warmth and flying through pages. Loved her chewing out her ex. Disliked her talking constantly about how pretty he thought she was. On a detail-wide level, I either loved or hated certain choices. I liked the book a lot overall, but went back and forth on certain specific aspects of it.

To be picky, I also did have some trouble connecting some actions and reactions in the plot, so found some of its transitions to be either awkward or telegraphed. So sometimes the plot beats didn’t entirely feel related. I personally dislike Taylor Swift (don’t hate me), so some of these moments may have been references to song lyrics I didn’t get, as the book is deeply inspired by her music.

To be picky again, many readers in other reviews are annoyed that despite the book’s title, no rules are really broken, so you shouldn’t go into it expecting one of those bucket-list or teenage-rebellion type reads. (It looks like K.L. Mather’s next book takes place over the course of a senior year scavenger hunt, which I’ll be reading next, so this formula may be one she likes. Still, the title is slightly misleading if you care.)

While my critiques are definitely picky, the book’s an easy, lovable read, and I read the entire thing on the beach in about two and a half hours. I was pretty content the whole way through, despite some slow sections. I can see why it will generally appeal broadly as a beach read, but you’ll probably love it most if you’re just in it for the butterflies and the Assassin setup rather than a deeper romance or grief exploration. It was definitely familiar, but that wasn’t a bad thing; I enjoyed it, and would read it again by a body of water. I’m glad I read it.

One very specific spoiler thought (click if you've read and want it): Wit at one point gets upset with Meredith for not telling him that he was her target in Assassin at the end. Meanwhile, she’s upset with him for not telling her that he knew her sister before she died, despite her being very clearly in the throes of intense grief. These two things are largely treated as equal to each other when they’re patching up their five-day-long relationship, when they are not at all. Wit, get over yourself. It’s a game.