Mary Kay Andrews
St Martin's Press, 2011
I was super looking forward to this one - I've thoroughly enjoyed the two other Mary Kay Andrews novels I've read (The Fixer Upper and Deep Dish, links to Goodreads), and Summer Rental is set at the Outer Banks. I love the OBX, and they're one of the natural highlights of my homestate. The cover is fun, the premise was interesting, and it just seemed like the perfect summer read. But once I got into it, I just had a hard time - so I flipped ahead, skip-reading, to see if everything went the way I thought it was, and then just called it done. Here's some more review-y things to think about if you want to give it a go yourself ...
There are a lot of characters, and each gets to tell their own story. Perspective changes a lot because of this, and sometimes it's not a clear transition from person to person. (I think that's what bugged me most, actually). Another aspect of the every-character-gets-their-story is that there are a lot of storylines to keep straight, which is actually less confusing than you'd expect. Also, there's a darker thread to the story - it's not just straight-up fun, beach read, chick lit. Since I was expecting a fun, light read, I was surprised.
Fans of Andrews should give it a go - I just have a hard time finishing books that are not what I thought I was reading, whether it's a timing-of-the-read-thing or what-have-you.
Book provided by my local library.
I believe that true Andrews fans are going to be like me, disappointed with this book. This is a book that feels like it could've been written by anybody BUT Mary Kay Andrews. If you want to read it, I'd suggest you wait and get it from the library. I don't believe that it's the sort of book that you pay for and then after reading it are happy that you plunked down your hard-earned money for it. I also wouldn't take this one to the beach for my vacation read--I'd reread Hissy Fit again. That's a GREAT truly funny book! So are her other books. I'd take any of them over this one. I'm just saying...
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