Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Review: Summer Rental by Mary Kay Andrews

Goodreads:  Sometimes, when you need a change in your life, the tide just happens to pull you in the right direction . . .

Ellis, Julia, and Dorie.  Best friends since Catholic grade school, they now find themselves, in their mid-thirties, at the crossroads of life and love.  Ellis, recently fired from a job she gave everything to, is rudderless and now beginning to question the choices she's made over the past decade of her life.  Julia - whose caustic wit covers up her wounds -- has a man who loves her and is offering her the world, but she can't hide from how deeply insecure she feels about her looks, her brains, her life.  And Dorie has just been shockingly betrayed by the man she loved and trusted the most in the world . . . though this is just the tip of the iceberg of her problems and secrets. A month in North Carolina's Outer Banks is just what they each of them needs.


Kritters Thoughts:  A wonderfully inviting story that captures the perfect summer vacation with just the girlfriends.  After reading this book, I wanted to call my closest girl friends and book a month away!  As the three best friends were in different points in their lives, it was nice to see each friend work through their own personal tragedies and come to more or less a nice and neat conclusion.  Another character joins these three in their beach house and ends up mixing things up a bit.

My one little complaint about the book lies in the fourth character – Maryn.  I loved how she was introduced and you weren’t sure where she was going to fit into the story.  But as the reader gets into the second half, I felt as though she was lost in the shuffle.  She was lost to the wayside, until she becomes the focal point as the book concludes.  As always, I will not reveal this ending as it is worth the read, but maybe if she had a larger role throughout the book, I wouldn’t have felt so sideswiped when the book starts to finish.

The arc of the three best friends was touching, emotional, and felt very real.  I saw the personalities of my best friends and how we can see each other’s situations as so much better than our own.  I know I covet where my friends are in their lives and maybe some of them covet where I am yet- maybe not!  I wanted to be a part of their group because I felt as though they were real people with real issues and situations that the everyday woman could find herself in, whether that be a job change, relationship status change or a move for a significant other.  These women were going through things each woman could relate to – no matter the time of their lives.

A read that my mom has already loved and thoroughly enjoy.  I am passing it along to my friends who need the perfect summer read, even if fall may be beginning.



Rating: perfect beach read

Pages:  402

July-Sept 2011 Challenge: Summer/School

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from the Goodreads First Reads program.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

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