Mini-reviews: Revenge Wears Prada, The Paris Bookseller, A Rosie Life In Italy, and Sorrow and Bliss

Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns by Lauren Weisberger

Read by Megan Hilty

7 hours, 10 minutes

Published June 2013 by Simon and Schuster

Publisher's Summary: 

Almost a decade has passed since Andy Sachs quit the job “a million girls would die for” working for Miranda Priestly at Runway magazine-a dream that turned out to be a nightmare. Andy and Emily, her former nemesis and co-assistant, have since joined forces to start a high end bridal magazine, The Plunge, which has quickly become required reading for the young and stylish. Now they get to call all the shots: Andy writes and travels to her heart's content; Emily plans parties and secures advertising like a seasoned pro. Even better, Andy has met the love of her life. Max Harrison, scion of a storied media family, is confident, successful, and drop-dead gorgeous. Their wedding will be splashed across all the society pages as their friends and family gather to toast the glowing couple. Andy Sachs is on top of the world. But karma's a bitch. The morning of her wedding, Andy can't shake the past. And when she discovers a secret letter with crushing implications, her wedding-day jitters turn to cold dread. Andy realizes that nothing-not her husband, nor her beloved career-is as it seems. She never suspected that her efforts to build a bright new life would lead her back to the darkness she barely escaped ten years ago-and directly into the path of the devil herself.

My Thoughts: 

I love the movie adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada, but I'd forgotten how far from the source material it veered until I read the sequel. Andy may have quit that dream job, but I was pretty disappointed to find that she quit it only to run a bridal magazine. Never trusted Emily or Max and Weisberger gave me exactly what I'd expected. Predictable. I'm a fan of a lot of movies adapted from books like these; but not, it appears, the books themselves. 

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher

Read by Lauryn Allman

10 hours, 37 minutes

Published January 2022 by Penguin Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the course of literature itself.

 
Shakespeare and Company is more than a bookstore and lending library: Many of the prominent writers of the Lost Generation, like Ernest Hemingway, consider it a second home. It's where some of the most important literary friendships of the twentieth century are forged-none more so than the one between Irish writer James Joyce and Sylvia herself. When Joyce's controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Beach takes a massive risk and publishes it under the auspices of Shakespeare and Company.
 
But the success and notoriety of publishing the most infamous and influential book of the century comes with steep costs. The future of her beloved store itself is threatened when Ulysses' success brings other publishers to woo Joyce away. Her most cherished relationships are put to the test as Paris is plunged deeper into the Depression and many expatriate friends return to America. As she faces painful personal and financial crises, Sylvia-a woman who has made it her mission to honor the life-changing impact of books-must decide what Shakespeare and Company truly means to her.

My Thoughts: 

Picked this one up because "Paris" and "Bookseller" intrigued me. Was pretty excited to find that it was about Sylvia Beach, who founded the famous Paris bookstore "Shakespeare and Company." While Beach led an interesting life, surrounded by fascinating people, the book dragged a bit for me, with so much of the focus on Beach's struggle with James Joyce and the publishing rights for Ulysses. Maybe the problem was that I wanted to shake her and make her understand what an a*# Joyce was before he about wiped her out. Part of it was just too much detail to getting that book "right" before it was sent out into the world. 

A Rosie Life In Italy: Move to Italy. Buy a Rundown Villa. What Could Go Wrong? by Rosie Melody

368 pages

Published October 2024 by Sourcebooks

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

When Rosie Meleady's landlady doubles her rent in cold, wet, overpriced Ireland, she packs up her family, her two dogs, and all her possessions into a camper van and sets off across Europe to sunny Italy, where she plans to grow her destination wedding planning business. 

Even though it has been a dream she attempted to follow several times, Rosie and her family soon find out moving abroad to start a new life is not all sunshine and gelato.

Between a hurricane, a global pandemic, and accidentally buying a massive villa—that has definitely seen better days— from eight cousins in the middle of a long-standing family dispute, Rosie pulls back the curtains on the less glamorous side of moving abroad. 

Lighthearted, uplifting, and utterly escapist, A Rosie Life in Italy is HGTV meets Under the Tuscan Sun—a delightful peek under the covers of what it's like to throw caution to the wind, take a risk, and build a life you once only dreamed of having.

My Thoughts: 

This one was a slow start for me (Rosie and her husband bounce around a lot in the beginning and seem particularly inept with their money) and things early on bounced between too much detail and giant jumps in time. But things picked up and I did enjoy this one, especially once I got more attached to the family and once they made the move to Italy. Although it does take all of the book before they actually have bought that rundown villa. This one's a memoir which makes the fact that they are only just getting their business in Italy up and running and have just started buying the villa (what a process!), when Covid hits all the more intense. 

That publication date is for the paperback edition, the edition I got through Netgalley. I wasn't aware of that so was startled, when I looked this one up, to discover that there is entire series to be read now. 

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Macon 

Read by Emilia Fox

10 hours, 38 minutes

Published February 2021 by HarperCollins

Publisher's Summary: 

Martha Friel just turned forty. Once, she worked at Vogue and planned to write a novel. Now, she creates internet content. She used to live in a pied-à-terre in Paris. Now she lives in a gated community in Oxford, the only person she knows without a PhD, a baby or both, in a house she hates but cannot bear to leave. But she must leave, now that her husband Patrick—the kind who cooks, throws her birthday parties, who loves her and has only ever wanted her to be happy—has just moved out.

Because there’s something wrong with Martha, and has been for a long time. When she was seventeen, a little bomb went off in her brain and she was never the same. But countless doctors, endless therapy, every kind of drug later, she still doesn’t know what’s wrong, why she spends days unable to get out of bed or alienates both strangers and her loved ones with casually cruel remarks. 

And she has nowhere to go except her childhood home: a bohemian (dilapidated) townhouse in a romantic (rundown) part of London—to live with her mother, a minorly important sculptor (and major drinker) and her father, a famous poet (though unpublished) and try to survive without the devoted, potty-mouthed sister who made all the chaos bearable back then, and is now too busy or too fed up to deal with her. 

But maybe, by starting over, Martha will get to write a better ending for herself—and she’ll find out that she’s not quite finished after all.

My Thoughts: 

I seems strange to say that I really liked a book in which mental illness and it's devastating consequences are the focus. But I really did - the book is well written and Emilia Fox does a terrific job. Family relationships and communication are explored in a caring way that shows that we don't always know what's happening in someone else's mind or life. Because we're getting the story from Martha's point of view, we're also getting the story from an unreliable narrator, which makes the entire book quite a ride. 

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

Read by Erin Bennett

12 hours, 45 minutes

Published June 2023 by Little, Brown and Company

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Publisher’s Summary: 

Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’s perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper.

So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend”—one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife—she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.

The husband of Hollis’s childhood friend Tatum arranges for Hollis’s first love, Jack Finigan, to spend time with them, stirring up old feelings. Meanwhile, Tatum is forced to play nice with abrasive and elitist Dru-Ann, Hollis’s best friend from UNC Chapel Hill. Dru-Ann’s career as a prominent Chicago sports agent is on the line after her comments about a client’s mental health issues are misconstrued online. Brooke, Hollis’s friend from their thirties, has just discovered that her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. Again! And then there’s Gigi, a stranger to everyone (including Hollis) who reached out to Hollis through her blog. Gigi embodies an unusual grace and, as it hap- pens, has many secrets.

My Thoughts: 

Is it possible this really is my first Elin Hilderbrand book? I think it may be. I know she has legions of fans and has written 28 (or 30, depending on what site you look at) books and I’m pretty sure I own at least one on my Nook* (undoubtedly bought based on a friend’s recommendation). 

I’m sure you’ve noticed, if you’ve been reading this blog for very many years, I’m not a big beach reads reader. Consequently, I can’t speak to how this one stands up to any of Hilderbrand’s other books or, for that matter, any other beach read. These are, as always, just my opinions. 

• Hilderbrand seems to want to check off all of the boxes. Black character? Check. Asian character? Check. Gay people? Check. One Goodreads reviewer really didn’t like this book at all, in part because of this and the “wokeness” of the book. To me, it just felt like Hilderbrand was trying to appeal to everyone, which is really hard to do well. 
• Hollis knows all of these women. She knows how many of them feel about some of the others. She does NOT know one of them in real life at all…honestly it didn’t feel like she knew her all that well as an online friend, either. And still she fully expected that they would all just have a great time together over the weekend. Spoiler alert: they don’t. 
• I could 100% have done without the old love interest appearing in the book and the book would have been better without him. And I would have liked Hollis better without him – it all felt so much like the behavior of high school kids. 
• There’s a lot of brand name dropping. 
• There’s a lot of talk about food. Which I enjoyed but it made me hungry all of the time. I can’t help but wonder if there are some delicious recipes thrown into the end of the print copy of this book. 
• I wasn’t a fan of most of the women, at least until later in the book when things began to resolve (no give away there – you all know that will happen because of the kind of book this is). So their behavior really annoyed me when they were letting petty things and past grievances impact a weekend that was supposed to be about helping their friend. 
• I did appreciate Hilderbrand’s take on social media: things aren’t always what they seem, we are often too quick to think of the people we “meet” there as people we truly know, and things can get blown way out of proportion and spread all too quickly (often causing real harm). 
• Erin Bennett does a fine job of reading the book and capturing the voices of so many people. 
• And the food – did I mention the food? Good golly, I want to get into the kitchen and pull out my cookbooks! 

Kirkus Reviews says “Hilderbrand always gets it right.” On the other hand, Goodreads reviewers by and large seem disappointed with this one. Which makes me feel better and more willing to try another Hilderbrand. 

*Actually I own two – 2009’s The Castaways and 2012’s Summerland

Mr. Wrong Number by Lynn Painter

Mr. Wrong Number by Lynn Painter

Read by Callie Dalton and Andrew Biden

8 hours, 27 minutes

Published March 2022 by Penguin Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

Bad luck has always followed Olivia Marshall...or maybe she's just the screw-up her family thinks she is. But when a "What are you wearing?" text from a random wrong number turns into the hottest, most entertaining-albeit anonymous-relationship of her life, she thinks things might be on the upswing....

Colin Beck has always considered Olivia his best friend's annoying little sister, but when she moves in with them after one of her worst runs of luck, he realizes she's turned into an altogether different and sexier distraction. He's sure he can keep his distance, until the moment he discovers she's the irresistible Miss Misdial he's been sort of sexting for weeks-and now he has to decide whether to turn the heat up or ghost her before things get messy.

My Thoughts: 

I recently read and reviewed Lynn Painter's The Love Wager; and, while it wasn't the book for me, I enjoyed the banter and wit enough to give another of her books a shot. Reviews of that one kept comparing it to this one so I decided that if any of Painter's books could make me a convert, Mr. Wrong Number was probably it. 

It wasn't. 

Half of all reviewers on Goodreads give this book 4 or 5 stars. It's clear that for readers of this particular genre, this book gives them everything they want in a book. If you look at the publisher's summary and think this sounds like something you'd like, you probably will. What's clear to me now is that this type of storytelling just isn't for me.  

I struggled from the beginning when Olivia responded to that first text. Because 1) how does she know the text is from a man; and 2) if any man texted me that, I would be done with him. But I got that I needed to buy into that so I kept going. Then it turns out that Olivia is, and always has been, a total screw up. This is a great disappointment to her family, really annoying for her brother's best friend, and something she seems to just write off about herself, as in "oh well, nothing I can do about it." But still, once again, give it a chance, I told myself. And I did; I listened to the entire book. But I never could find any sympathy for a lead character who, while staying at someone else's house drinks half a bottle of previously unopened liquor and doesn't feel like she did anything wrong with it, not even when confronted with the fact that it cost $400; who lies to an employer to get a job; and who accuses Colin of outing her to said employer even though there is no reason for him to do so. 

The storyline itself had potential for me and I was willing to go along with the premise, but it just felt like it could have been so much more. There was opportunity to explore the relationship between Olivia and her mother, for example. Olivia could have come clean to her employer up front and I felt like they still would have wanted her for what she offered. She and Colin could have had more conversations where they learned about each other and found that their assumptions were wrong (I mean, that might have come up while they were lying in bed together after bonking each other). 

All of that being said, again, I just think that this genre is not for me. Others clearly loved this book and Painter's books in general and I'm glad that there are books out there in the wild for readers of all types. As for me, it's time to move on. Perhaps back to what I know, perhaps to give another genre a shot. 

The Marriage Sabbatical by Lian Dolan

The Marriage Sabbatical by Lian Dolan

288 pages

Published April 2024 by HarperCollins

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

After twenty-three years of building careers and raising kids together, Jason and Nicole Elswick are ready for a break from their daily lives. Jason has spent years planning his dream sabbatical—ditching work for a nine-month-long motorcycle trip through South America. Problem is, that’s Jason’s dream, not Nicole’s. After years working retail and parenting in Portland, Nicole craves the sun of the Southwest and the artistic community in Santa Fe, where she wants to learn jewelry design.

A chance encounter at a dinner party presents a surprising—and intriguing—way out of their dilemma. Over a little too much wine, Jason and Nicole’s married neighbors sing the praises of the 500 Mile Rule: their policy of enjoying themselves however they wish—and with whomever they wish—when they’re temporarily far apart. It seems like the perfect solution: nine months pursuing their own adventures—with a bit of don’t-ask-don’t-tell—and then a return to their shared lives. It’ll be a sabbatical from their marriage as well as their day jobs.

As Jason bikes his way across a continent and Nicole reclaims the art she’s long neglected, they discover the pleasures and pitfalls of the 500 Mile Rule, confronting temptations of all kinds, uncomfortable truths about themselves, and gaining new perspective on their partnership.

But all sabbaticals come to an end…then what?

My Thoughts: 

When the publisher approached me about reading and reviewing Lian Dolan's latest book, there was no hesitation on my part, despite the fact that I had a lot of books I already needed to read and review. Dolan is a no-brainer for me; I've read and enjoyed all of her books. 

Here is what I know about them: 

• there will be humor 
• there will be relationships of all kinds to explore;
• the setting will become a part of the story;
• a look at marriage and what we know and don't know about the people we're married to;
• some of the characters will feel like stereotypes but it always feels like they are proving that there's a reason those stereotypes exist; and 
• and the ending will be exactly what you'd expect but also not the neat and tidy ending that always strikes me as so unrealistic. The Marriage Sabbatical gave me all of those things. 

**This is where I got to when my review apparently stopped saving and I'm struggling to recreate what I want to say, but I'll give it my best shot and cross my fingers that it saves this time. 

The Marriage Sabbatical gave me all of that as well as a couple of things I've never gotten from Dolan before. One was a man's point of view. The other was the premise of a married couple giving each other permission to have physical relationships with other people. It was this idea that came to Dolan first and then she created the book around that idea. But, if I'm honest (and I did say I would give the book an honest review), I struggled with this idea. From the idea of being separated from my spouse (and my children - although theirs are both overseas) for months on end with very little communication to the idea of either or both of us having intimate relations with other people, this was a tough one for me. It helped to find that both Jason and Nicole got what they needed from the experiment. I don't want to get too much into their relationships with others; but I was relieved to see that Dolan didn't make it easy nor without a little discomfort on both parties part. 

The stereotypes felt a little less organic this time around; the pieces just happening to fall into place a little less believable - a little more suspension of disbelief was required; and it felt, at times, a little too much like a PR piece for Santa Fe (although it was a good one - I really want to go there now!). 

Still, I liked the way Dolan explored all kinds of relationships, I liked that things didn't work out exactly how the characters expected them to work out, and I really liked Nicole rediscovering herself. She'd been in mom mode for so many years and for so long had felt like what she did for work was "less than." That's something so many women suffer from. She pushed herself out of her comfort zone, leaned into her strengths and found out how much they mattered to others, and gained a confidence in herself that showed in the way she presented herself. In the end, I got what I wanted - both an ending that is happy for the characters while also not being entirely tidy. 

This would make a really good book club selection - so much to discuss! 

The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

Read by Kristen DiMercurio and Zachary Webber

7 hours

Published March 2023 by Penguin Publishing Group 

Publisher's Summary: 

Hallie Piper is turning over a new leaf. After belly-crawling out of a hotel room (hello, rock bottom), she decides it's time to become a full-on adult. She gets a new apartment, a new haircut, and a new wardrobe, but when she logs onto the dating app that she has determined will find her new love, she sees none other than Jack, the guy whose room she snuck out of. 

After agreeing they are absolutely not interested in each other, Jack and Hallie realize they're each other's perfect wing-person in their searches for The One. They text each other about their dates, often scheduling them at the same restaurant so that if things don't go well, the two of them can get tacos afterward. 

Spoiler: they get a lot of tacos together. 

Discouraged by the lack of prospects, Jack and Hallie make a wager to see who can find true love first, but when they agree to be fake dates for a weekend wedding, all bets are off. As they pretend to be a couple, lines become blurred and they both struggle to remember why the other was a bad idea to begin with.

My Thoughts: 

A friend recently met Lynn Painter (can't remember where or how) and asked me, the next day, if I'd ever read any of her books. I said I hadn't but since she's from Omaha, I decided I should give her books a shot, even if they aren't a genre that I regularly read. What better time than summer to read a rom-com? 

What Didn't Work For Me: 

• The great guy who's with a terrible woman (who he's poised to propose to in Chapter 1) is such a confusing trope for me. Painter has Jack explain this by saying that things just sort of progressed to that point because it felt like that should be what came next. But seriously, how? Wouldn't he have wised up to what kind of person she was LONG before it came to an engagement? 
• Both the almost-became-Mrs. Jack and a former classmate of Hallie's that we meet in the first chapter are terrible human beings. I felt like the same result could have been reached without making these women such reprehensible people. 
• I was never clear why Hallie and Jack decided they couldn't date when they found each other on a dating app.
• Ok, this is going to make me sound prudish, but the sex. Not that they had sex. Just that in the first chapter, things were largely left to our imaginations (although we learned a lot about what had happened as the book went on) and the focus was really on the friendship (and they way each of them begins to realize they have feelings for the other one but don't want to mess up the friendship so don't say anything). Then, suddenly, it's all about the hot, steamy sex that the two have one weekend while they are "pretend" dating at Hallie's sister's wedding. 
• The narrating. I really enjoyed having the dual narrators and both readers were solid. 

What I Liked: 

• While these two main characters had plenty of faults (Hallie actually moved out of an apartment she shared while the roommate was out of town without telling the roommate), I felt like they both showed some growth as the book went on. 
• I really enjoyed the banter between the two characters. I found it witty and fun and would have enjoyed more of it. 
• You know that the two will end up together in the end and you know that something will come up that will cause a deep rift before that can happen (and you even know well before it happens what it will be) and it still worked for me. 

I'll confess: I did look at Goodreads review before I wrote this and the reviews are largely very good (although a handful of people really disliked this one). I imagine a good many of them are fans of the genre in general and more are fans of Painter's in particular. So, while there was a lot that didn't work for me in this one, there was enough to like to make me consider trying another of her books. Those reviews that praised the book (and even some that didn't) recommended others of her book as better. So I'll give her another shot. In fact, I've just put another of Painter's books on hold. 

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

320 page 

Published April 2023 by Random House Publishing Group 

Publisher's Summary: 

Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, a late-night live comedy show that airs every Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life. 

But when Sally’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show—and in society at large—who’ve gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. 

Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called the Danny Horst Rule, poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman. Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week’s show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder if there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn’t a romantic comedy—it’s real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her . . . right? 

With her keen observations and trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page, Curtis Sittenfeld explores the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love, while slyly dissecting the social rituals of romance and gender relations in the modern age.

My Thoughts: 

You may recall me saying, on more than one occasion, that a book every seems to like just did not seem to work for me. Here we have the opposite case. So many people on Goodreads really did not like this book at all. But me? For me, this was the right book at the right time. Summer light, but not too light, not too mindless.

The Night Owls is clearly Saturday Night Live (Sittenfeld says as much in the Acknowledgements) and I loved see behind the curtain (and I'm assuming, given the number of resources Ms. Sittenfeld lists, that it's fairly accurate). Clearly the recent spate of SNL cast members dating or marrying major stars has inspired Ms. Sittendfeld to ponder the question "why doesn't it seem to work the other way?" To be fair, have you ever seen one of the female cast members dating some knockout major celebrity? You and I both know where this is going to go, right? 

One of the strikes against this book is that it breaks no new ground. There's a meet cute. You know immediately that the Danny Horst Rule is going to be broken. But here's the thing - I expect that from a book called Romantic Comedy. More than once Sally and Noah discuss how thin the line is between cheesiness and romance. That's the same fine line Sittenfeld travels in this book and the same line she wants readers to ponder. At one point Noah says that the answer lies in whether or not you're involved in it. What made this not cheesy for me was that, although Sally was very insecure about her looks and she's had a terrible history with love, she is not ditzy, nor clumsy, nor involved in a relationship with another man that falls apart when she realizes how she really feels about Noah. None of those things we so often see in romantic comedies. Sally is smart and makes a great living without any help from any man. And how will a man win her over? Not by the grand gesture (although Sally is happy to admit that she just might be impressed by that), but by the ability of a man to show that he's a caring, real human being. I liked that. 

Plus, there's a middle section that's entirely emails between Sally and Noah. Some of those reviewers hated that part (and it may well not have been great on audio), but I loved it. Give me a good epistolary novel any day of the week. 

In all honesty, the first part of the book was better, in my opinion, and I did get tired of hearing how ordinary Sally was. But I forgave Sittenfeld for those things because there was more than enough to have me racing through this book. Right book. Right time. 

Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

Published November 2022 by Penguin Publishing Group

Read by AJ Bridel

9 hours, 38 minutes

Publisher's Summary: 

They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.

Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry's Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek-the man she never thought she'd have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family's restaurant and curling up together with books-medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her-Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.

When Percy returns to the lake for Sam's mother's funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she's spent punishing herself for them, they'll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic story of love and the people and choices that mark us forever.

My Thoughts: 

Would I be happy to work from home every day? Sure; I'd love to work in my pj's, avoid rush hour traffic, and eat hot lunches. But if I did that, then I wouldn't get to talk to book people every day. In my department of seven, three of us are avid readers who talk a lot about books and we've gotten to know each other's tastes well enough to have a pretty good idea what the others might enjoy. So when one of them recommended this book, I didn't hesitate to check it out. She didn't sell it as high fiction; she sold it as chick lit and some depth, but also light enough to break up the heavier reads. 

Which is exactly what this book is. You have to be willing to buy into the idea that a couple of childhood friends will develop such a deep love for each other than twelve years after they last saw each other, both are still incapable of falling in love with anyone else. To be honest, I did have to remind myself periodically to let go of the idea that the premise was highly unlikely and just go with the flow. Is Sam too often a little too perfect? Yes, also that. But Fortune has him mishandle things just often enough that he still feels human. Did it seem strange that Sam's mom and Percy's parents, who never seemed to spend that much time together in the summer, suddenly decide to spend holidays together. Yes; it probably would have helped to talk about them sitting on the deck having cocktails, watching the kids swim. But Fortune needed a way to have Sam and Percy spend more time together beyond just the summers so, again, you just have to go with it. And did I figure out what the big revel at the end was ahead of time. Yeah, I did (and you know how rare that is!). But I was still, to be fair, disappointed in Percy when it was revealed. 

But I loved the way Fortune described Barry's Bay and life there. I could vividly picture the lake, the houses, the lifestyle, the kind of bond two kids could develop over a summer spent living together in a world apart from real life. And I'd always prefer a relationship to develop from friendship, rather than the kind where two people bicker throughout the book (or show, or movie) and then suddenly succumb to deep passion. 

So, no, it's not high literature. But it's always fun to read a book set in the summer, with plenty of references to books, that you can just race through. AJ Brindel does a great job of handling all of the various voices and really adds to the book. Oh! One more thing! Midway through my listening, the coworker who recommended the book was talking to my other reading coworker about how this book has some depth and I said, "yeah, and plenty of sex!" Which she, not all that long after having read the book, didn't even recall! She read it for the romance and that's what she got! Which is exactly what you want in a book like this - to get exactly what you want from it.