The Five-Star Weekend is a novel published by Elin Hilderbrand in 2023. The first page is not a promising start as the narrator asserts that “Hollis Shaw is something of a unicorn.” Even in 2023, this slang used to describe the perfect woman who is always just out of reach of attainment had become a bit of an overused trope. On top of that, the ancient mythological implications of a unicorn used to describe an adult woman twenty years into the millennium seem hopelessly dated. It turns out that unicorn woman Hollis Shaw is the one hosting the five-star weekend of a group of her friends. Eventually, the story will introduce a character named Electra Undergrove. At this point, the description of Hollis as a unicorn begins to feel almost quaint, and by the end, she has become attainable.
The five-star weekend hosted by Hollis is arranged in the wake of the recent death of her husband, Matthew Madden in a car accident. That accident came on the heels of a typical marital spat over emotional commitment. The get-together is also partially about the attempts by noted food blogger Hollis to give her career a much-needed jumpstart. Charged with recording the entire weekend for posterity, or at least some more short-term utilization, is Hollis’ daughter, Caroline. The narrative rides upon the backs of each of the women currently dealing with one or another crisis in their lives. Dru-Ann, for instance, is a former college roommate of Hollis who has since gone on to success in professional sports as a personality and agent who is currently facing possible cultural cancellation due to controversially accusing a big tennis star of faking a mental health condition. Another friend, Tatum, is dealing with a cancer diagnosis. Brooke, a best friend with whom Hollis raised their children together, is undergoing something of a mid-life crisis of doubt about her marriage and fitness as a friend. The core revelation involves the final friend attending the weekend get-together. Gigi has come to know Hollis as a fan of her foodie blog. But Gigi is also a pilot and her job had brought her into contact with Matthew as well but on a much more visceral level. The story is thus not one of great action, but rather one in which the high points of drama are emotional hits revelations, and epiphanies.
Throughout the narrative, Hollis learns of Gigi’s affair with her late husband. Caroline, in her role as documentarian of the event, learns a great deal more about her mother than she ever knew. Dru-Ann continues to deal with the potential of losing her career due to public outcry from people she’s never even met. And Tatum comes to learn the extent to which cancer is going to impact her future. What readers should not expect is any introduction of a murder into the plot or a sudden transformation of any character from what they were at first. The novel is a muted but emotionally impactful celebration of friendship and the ability to forgive in the name of preserving and treasuring that friendship. Hollis, her four friends, and her daughter all come together at a time in their lives when something huge has occurred to give them pause to reflect and contemplate the meaning of long friendships and the ability to understand and forgive.
In this sense, the novel is a reflection upon the unpromising beginning in which an overused metaphor is engaged to singularly describe the main character. Throughout the story, however, the revelations and contemplative moments contribute to the emotional tone to a degree in which the convergence of major turning points in the lives of women of different social strata and ages does not seem quite so dramatically engineered.
