Monday, June 14, 2010

Summer House by Nancy Thayer


Summer House by Nancy Thayer was the June FLICKS Book and Movie Club pick. Summer House is the tale of three generations of women who are all vacationing together with their families on their Nantucket retreat. Nona is the 90-year old matriarch of the family and remembers back to the days when she first met, feel in love with, had to separate with her husband during WWII. Her daughter-in-law Helen is facing current troubles with her husband Worth and their three children. Helen’s daughter Charlotte has started her own organic garden business on the island and is running from her past while also trying to start a romance with her good-looking next door neighbor, Bill Cooper.

While I found the book enjoyable, I felt that all of the storylines were not given enough time to really develop. The stories were tidally finished at the end, but I felt like there was so much more which could have been explored. Forgiveness for past wrongs seemed to come too soon without a good reason. I also didn’t care about the main love story as I should have because the male characters were not developed enough. I also wanted to know more about Nona’s daughter’s (Grace) issues, but she was portrayed as a one-dimensional harpy and we never learned what caused her problems.

Overall the book was an okay beach read, but had unsatisfactory character development.

Book Source: The Kewaunee Public Library

1 comment:

  1. I've been so disappointed lately with books that lack in character development. In my head, I thought I was okay with it, but it turns out in practice I'm not. I'll pass on this one.

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