Summertime Punchline

Summertime Punchline

Betty Corrello

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

HBO’s Hacks meets Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After in this hilarious and sweeping love story about a comedian forced to return to her Jersey Shore hometown and confront everything she left behind ten summers before—including the man who broke her heart. Then. Delfina Silva-Miller wants one thing: to leave behind Evergreen, New Jersey and never look back. Despite her adoring grandmother’s best efforts, Del can’t bear to live another moment at the whims of her deadbeat dad (so cliché) and her ever-temperamental crush, Eddie Rodriguez (humiliating). Now. If there’s one thing Del knows how to do, it’s spin her bad luck into a killer joke. After years of hard work, she’s finally landed a coveted spot at a huge comedy festival, molding the often tragic raw material of her life into comedic gold. But when Del loses her job, boyfriend, and apartment in the span of a few hours, she’s forced to pack her bags and return to the home she swore off at eighteen. Del is determined not to let her history with Evergreen distract her. She has 45 days to perfect a new comedy set and march into her new life. Instead, she marches right into Eddie Rodriguez. But he’s nothing like the boy she left behind ten years ago. As the festival draws closer, Del is faced with the terrifying possibility that everything she’s ever wanted isn’t as far away as it once seemed. Vividly evoking the boardwalks and beaches of the Jersey Shore, Summertime Punchline is a hilarious, vulnerable, and sweeping love story celebrating the complicated relationships—romantic and not—that impact our lives, for better or worse.


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  • bookgang
    Mar 30, 2025
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

     If your favorite summer memories were curling up with your Nana and watching soap operas, this summer debut will bring you so much joy as a woman returns to her Nana on the Jersey Shore after a breakup.

    Delvina has been preoccupied with her life and has lost touch with her grandmother over the last year, but when she loses her job, apartment, and boyfriend all in one fell swoop, the only place she knows she can afford is to make her way home again.  

    Shockingly, Nana has formed a friendship with her old high school flame, Eddie Rodriguez, a boy who simultaneously tortured her as a kid and broke her heart in her teens. Eddie picks her Nana up daily for water aerobics classes with a hot coffee in hand and even has been teaching her Nana Spanish on the way to classes. It's... disgusting. 

    But, when Delvina decides to do a stand-up comedy routine at the local dive bar, she is floored to discover that Eddie also owns that bar and she begins to realize that he has become the people's Mayor who is beloved and as magnetic as she remembered. 

    As she  prepares for the show, she confronts not only what she left behind ten summers ago but also why it fell apart in the first place. She's not the only one with secrets, though, as she and Eddie begin to rekindle what they have lost, laced with fun slow dance memories as they sway to Sex & Candy

    This story is told in a dual timeline, offering a delightful millennial romance with a dusting of spice—making it a sweet beach read you can finish in a day. 

    TAG: Second Chance Romance, One-Bed Trope

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  • treesbookscandles
    Apr 02, 2025
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

    This book was delightful. Also hot, funny, and had great depth. I wish more contemporary romances were like this. A great debut!

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