This novel is about friendship, grief, coping, and always being there for each other. It does tackle issues such as suicide and alcohol abuse, but above all, it's about being there for your friends.The story begins as an unlikely quartet of college freshmen meet each other for the first time in the basement lounge of their dorm the very beginning of their freshmen year. These young adults are from very different backgrounds, different states, different family situations; yet, they bond, and more so, they become inseparable throughout their four years of college.These four friends also take four distinct routes as far as their majors - Pre Med, Pre law, acting/drama, and interior design. The action of the plot catapults in the very first chapter with the suicide of the one friend - Summer, the Pre Med student on a full ride cross country scholarship, who perhaps on appearances sake seemed to be the one to have it the most together. This tragedy occurs just days before their college graduation and shakes the now trio to their core.The three remaining friends, reeling from their friend's suicide, make a pact, The Summer Pact, to always be there for each other, no matter where they are or what is going on in their lives.The action of the book commences a decade later with one of the friends, Hannah, not quite getting dumped at the alter, but finding her fiancé cheating with a much younger Atlanta rising influencer weeks before their nuptials. The other two friends - Lainey, who by this time is a rising actress, and Tyson, a promising NY lawyer - drop everything to be with their friend. What ensues are different legs of a planned trip that reveal to us some underlying problems and some seeking for solutions in the characters' lives.The Summer Pact was a very quick read that once I started, I didn't want to put down. I had read some Emily Giffin books before but older ones - Something Borrowed and Something Blue. If you like the "chick lit" type of book and authors like Elin Hilderbrand and Jennifer Weiner, I feel that you would like this newest one of Emily Giffin's. Grab it for this summer. It releases July 9th.Thank you, NetGalley and Ballantine Books for this portrayal of not only adult friendship but also self-discovery.