The Summer of Broken Rules

Written in 2021 by K. L. Walther, The Summer of Broken Rules is a work of contemporary fiction that quickly became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller and a BookTok sensation. This is Walther’s second book, with her first being If We Were Us. Although The Summer of Broken Rules demonstrates the whirlwind plot characteristic of a modern-day romance novel, it also tackles a variety of much more serious topics, the most prominent of which focuses on the death of a family member and the various ways in which family members collectively process their grief.

This guide refers to the Sourcebooks Fire paperback edition of the book.

Plot Summary

A year and a half prior to the beginning of the novel, Claire Fox died in a car accident involving a drunk driver. After Claire’s death, her sister, Meredith, isolated herself from everyone except her boyfriend, Ben Fletcher. Now, one of Meredith’s cousins is getting married, and the entire family is gathering at the family homestead on Martha’s Vineyard to celebrate the wedding. The event marks the first time since Claire’s death that everyone is getting together. To complicate matters further, Ben broke up with Meredith just two weeks before the gathering, doubling her sense of grief and loss.