The Five-Star Weekend

Switching to a third-person narrator, Chapter 1 begins on December 15, 2022, the morning of Matthew’s death. Hollis prepares pastry dough for an approaching holiday party she hosts with Matthew annually. Her kitchen is a picture “of domestic bliss” with many tasteful Christmas decorations, carols playing softly, and a steaming cup of coffee sitting on her marble countertop (9). In addition to party preparations, Hollis cooks Matthew’s breakfast: red-pepper-and-smoked-Gouda quiche, bacon, and Cara Cara orange slices. Despite the charming aesthetic, Hollis feels upset with Matthew, who will travel to Germany for work and miss their holiday gathering. As he prepares to depart for the airport, Hollis and Matthew engage in a heated argument, leaving Hollis tearful and feeling undervalued. As Hollis tries to communicate a lack of intimacy, Matthew tells her, “You’ve changed […] And we’ve changed” (13).

Hollis believes Matthew alludes to the success of Hungry With Hollis as the cause of their changes. After Matthew leaves for the airport, Hollis considers how preoccupied she has become, constantly prioritizing her website above all else. She attempts to call Matthew and apologize, but she resorts to text messaging when her calls go to voicemail. Hollis feels increasingly desperate to connect with Matthew. She distracts herself by making a dinner reservation for the two of them on New Year’s Eve and then scrolls through Facebook. Hollis checks her former boyfriend’s profile. Jack Finigan posts infrequently, and Hollis realizes he hasn’t shared a picture with his girlfriend, Mindy, in over a year. She wonders if he follows Hungry With Hollis.

The police knock on Hollis’s door, startling her. Hollis breaks down when they inform her about the car accident and Matthew’s death. Matthew swerved on snowy roads, attempting to avoid crashing into a mother deer and her fawn. Hollis cannot bring herself to read the accident report provided by the police. In the following days, Hollis holds a funeral for Matthew while navigating growing complications in her relationship with her daughter, Caroline. Always close with her father, Caroline accuses Hollis of not caring about Matthew’s death. Caroline has an emotional outburst when Hollis clears Matthew’s possessions from a closet, accusing Hollis of being selfish. Caroline returns to New York City, where she attends college.

Over the coming weeks, Hollis struggles to eat, sleep, and care for herself as she mourns Matthew’s death. Although she receives offers of support from neighbors and family members, Hollis feels comforted only while sharing messages with Gigi Ling, one of her followers on Hungry With Hollis. Eventually, Hollis tells Gigi about the argument before Matthew’s car accident. Gigi suggests Matthew was jealous of Hollis’s success. Several months later, Hollis confesses to picking a fight with Matthew before his planned Germany trip. She believes Matthew was speeding to make his flight and feels responsible for his accident because she made him late. When Gigi stops communicating with Hollis after this confession, Hollis is deeply hurt. Hollis realizes how little she knows about Gigi other than that she works as a pilot and loves cooking and reading. Hollis feels selfish for not getting to know Gigi better.

In a rude text message, Caroline writes that she will not join Hollis in Nantucket for the summer, as Isaac Opoku, a well-known filmmaker, hired her for an internship. Caroline informs Hollis about an apartment she plans on subletting, expressing no appreciation or gratitude that Hollis will pay Caroline’s rent. Hollis leaves for Nantucket with her Serbian sheepdog, Henrietta, feeling like she is returning home.

Hollis recalls the second summer she and Matthew spent in their newly built mansion on Nantucket. She remembers feeling lonely in adolescence, wishing she lived with the wealthy, large family for whom she babysat in her teen years. She felt her dreams came true that summer with Matthew, especially when Matthew revealed a renovated lily pond he had built for Hollis. Now, Hollis discovers a renewed grief as she misses the Nantucket version of Matthew.

Hollis takes sleeping pills, but she inevitably wakes in the middle of the night. She searches the internet for ways to cope with her grief and stumbles upon a blog by a widow named Moira detailing a five-star weekend she organized after the death of her husband. Moira invited four friends from each stage of her life (teens, twenties, prime of life, and midlife) for a fun weekend getaway. Sparked with energy at the creative idea, Hollis invites Tatum McKenzie, Dru-Ann Jones, Brooke Kirtley, and Gigi for her five-star weekend. She falls asleep quickly without the use of medication.

Hollis sends four separate texts inviting her friends to her five-star weekend. Brooke is the first to reply with an enthusiastic acceptance of Hollis’s invitation. Hollis realizes that Brooke’s personality is overbearing. Electra Undergrove, Hollis’s best friend from her “prime of life” years (28), no longer speaks with Hollis, and Hollis sees Brooke as a second choice. She panics at the thought of spending a weekend alone with Brooke and anxiously waits for her other friends to reply. Hollis’s friend from college, Dru-Ann, must shuffle her hectic work schedule, but she plans on attending. Dru-Ann hosts an ESPN show focused on women in sports. She also writes for New York Magazine and is on Forbes’s Most Powerful Women list. Hollis worries about the chemistry between her two confirmed guests and remembers Dru-Ann dislikes Brooke, but Brooke adores Dru-Ann.

Tatum, Hollis’s friend from her teen years, replies next. Although she feels apprehensive about staying in Hollis’s new Nantucket house, she accepts the invitation. Hollis considers how distant her relationship with Tatum has felt since Hollis became a summer person on Nantucket. Hollis starts to worry that her five-star weekend will be more dramatic than relaxing and indulgent.

The following morning, Gigi politely accepts Hollis’s invitation. Hollis restrains herself from asking Gigi why she hasn’t responded to her messages.

Caroline ponders a text from Hollis, who has asked Caroline to film her five-star weekend. Caroline realizes how unfairly she treats Hollis, but her grief from losing Matthew pervades her ability to summon empathy for others. She agrees to Hollis’s request only when Hollis offers to pay Caroline $2,500.

Caroline has a brief affair with her mentor, Isaac, who lives with his girlfriend and is 14 years older than Caroline. Although Isaac is primarily sensitive and gentle with Caroline, he occasionally loses his temper. He agrees to lend Caroline filming equipment, though he refers to filming the five-star weekend as a “funny little project” (39). While Hollis expects Caroline to capture warm, aesthetically pleasing scenes with her closest friends, Caroline anticipates finding a meatier, underlying story around which she can build a more serious documentary.

Excited, Hollis assesses her beautiful Nantucket home while preemptively assigning bedrooms for her friends. Although happy Caroline agreed to attend and film, Hollis can’t help but feel she bribed her daughter to spend time with her. She pets Henrietta and updates Hungry With Hollis for the first time in seven months, posting about her upcoming five-star weekend and receiving mixed reviews from her followers.

Tatum sees Hollis at the grocery store and then immediately switches directions and exits as quickly as possible. Although late for work, she stops at Hollis’s car, noticing an unlocked door with keys in the ignition. Tatum sarcastically thinks this is odd behavior for a “summer person,” and she hides Hollis’s keys under the driver’s seat in a harmless prank. Her next stop is Holdgate’s Island Laundry.

Tatum works for Nantucket’s all-inclusive cleaning and errand service; she heads to the dry cleaners to pick up shirts for her client. Met with a long line, Tatum waits and worries about a recent biopsy she had after finding a lump in her breast. She thinks about Matthew and worries about her husband, Luke. Tatum remembers her mother’s harrowing experience with breast cancer, which caused her death. She feels certain the biopsy will deliver bad news, and she ignores a call from the hospital. Tatum worries about her son, Dylan, and grandson, Orion, watching her undergo chemotherapy. She thinks about a client who moved his mistress into his Nantucket mansion before his wife, receiving hospice care in the same house, passed away from cancer. Tatum felt disgusted at the man’s excuse for his infidelity; he claimed his wife wouldn’t want him to be lonely.

Hollis appears in line behind Tatum at Holdgate’s and greets her with warm familiarity. Tatum feels this is unfair as Hollis became a completely different person after marrying Matthew. Tatum gives Hollis her condolences about Matthew while hugging her friend; she also apologizes for not attending Matthew’s funeral. Tatum confirms that she plans on attending the five-star weekend, and she feels agitated upon learning Dru-Ann will be present. Tatum alludes to a negative experience with Dru-Ann at Hollis’s wedding.

Dru-Ann accepts a call from her co-host, Marla, while aggressively driving her Rolls-Royce Phantom to her office. Marla tells Dru-Ann that their producer plans to temporarily replace Dru-Ann due to a trending scandal. A viral video depicts Dru-Ann apparently minimizing Posey Wofford’s mental health issues. A professional golfer, Posey is Dru-Ann’s client, and Dru-Ann is in a serious relationship with Posey’s father, Nick.

Posey does not have mental health issues. At a recent dinner with Dru-Ann and Nick, Posey announced that she plans to withdraw from a tournament (that she’s leading by four strokes) to be with her boyfriend, Phineas, another professional golfer, while he competes in the British Open. Posey told Dru-Ann she intends to explain her absence and lie to her sponsors by claiming she is recovering from a mental health issue. When Nick failed to reprimand his daughter for being dishonest and shirking her responsibilities, Dru-Ann angrily confronted him for enabling Posey. Another diner at a neighboring table captured a short video of Dru-Ann telling Nick that Posey “needs to suck it up and play through!” and immediately posted the recording to social media (57).

Dru-Ann enters her office and discovers her boss, J.B. Channing, waiting for her. He informs Dru-Ann that she will be placed on a leave of absence while human resources drafts an apology. J.B. neither gives Dru-Ann an opportunity to clarify what happened with Posey nor seems to care whether Dru-Ann dismissed Posey’s mental health. On the drive home, Nick calls to end their relationship. On the verge of tears, Dru-Ann receives a text from Hollis with a plan for outfit color coordination for the five-star weekend. Dru-Ann nearly forgot about the five-star weekend and had intended to cancel at the last minute. Under new circumstances, Dru-Ann is excited about a weekend with a friend who desperately needs her presence.

Brooke, in a well-edited selfie posted to social media, refers to an upcoming girls’ weekend in the caption. In the photo, she sits with her open suitcases in her recently redecorated bedroom. Electra Undergrove comments on the post that she will also be on Nantucket and suggests the women meet for a drink. Brooke ambiguously recalls Electra’s dismissal of Brooke from their shared friends’ group years prior. Brooke felt left out and lonely after the incident, so she doesn’t reply to Electra’s comment.

A lawyer attempts to serve Brooke’s husband, Charlie, with legal notification that he is being sued. Charlie has a history of groping women. When Charlie arrives home, he explains how he grabbed his young female co-worker, Irish, from behind. He minimizes his actions and blames Irish for not being “cool.” Brooke feels happy that Irish is suing her husband. Charlie also reveals that his company fired him upon learning about the lawsuit. Brooke realizes she feels nothing but sadness for her children in her decision to divorce Charlie. Charlie made Brooke believe the couple lacked friends because of Brooke’s social awkwardness, but Brooke knows Charlie’s inappropriate behavior alienates others. She checks her social media post and notices her girls’ trip picture has generated the most likes she’s ever received. 

Gigi waits as an intoxicated couple is escorted from her airplane before taking off from Cancun. She dislikes how frequently this disruption happens on the Cancun route, but she couldn’t fly the same European routes after Matthew’s death. Even though Gigi doesn’t arrive home until late, her neighbors invite her over. They want to hear the details about Gigi’s plans to meet her deceased lover’s wife.

Gigi met Matthew in an airport a few years prior. For several months, Matthew lied about being single, during which time Gigi fell in love with him. Matthew eventually confessed to being married, though he told Gigi that he and Hollis lived separate lives. Gigi recognized Hollis’s name immediately since most of the women she works with follow Hungry With Hollis. She used information from Matthew to craft her comments on the website to connect with Hollis. Hollis replied to Gigi through the website, and their friendship grew organically.

Gigi, desperate to be around any part of Matthew, believes Hollis’s invitation is genuinely friendly, but her neighbors suspect Hollis knows about the affair and is baiting Gigi with a fictitious girls’ weekend to confront her.

Hollis sends out her itinerary for the five-star weekend to her Hungry With Hollis subscribers. Happy for Hollis, her followers generally ask for the recipes she plans to cook throughout the weekend. Some criticize the tight schedule for the weekend and believe Hollis isn’t allowing her friends enough free time. A few people think it is disrespectful to Matthew for Hollis to throw an elaborate gathering so publicly. Hollis doesn’t reply to any specific comment but tells her followers that she plans to be offline for the weekend.

Caroline waits for Hollis to pick her up at the Nantucket airport. She cries, remembering Matthew picking her up on previous occasions, Henrietta in tow. Caroline feels caught off guard by her renewed grief as more memories of her father in Nantucket pour in. She also feels heartbroken about the end of her relationship with Isaac.

Dylan McKenzie and his son, Orion, approach Caroline. Dylan and Caroline met as teenagers on Nantucket and realized their mothers were close childhood friends. They shared an intimate conversation by a bonfire one evening, though it was rudely interrupted by Aubrey, Dylan’s girlfriend. That summer, Caroline noticed Dylan staring at her multiple times, much to Aubrey’s chagrin. A couple years later, Aubrey and Dylan had Orion, who’s now two and a half, and they co-parent even though they are no longer a couple. Aubrey arrives to pick up Orion, and she’s just as rude to Caroline as she was when they were teens. Dylan drives Caroline to Hollis’s house in Squam. He reports Tatum’s excitement about the upcoming five-star weekend, and Caroline feels happy for Hollis.