Summary from GoodReads
(a.k.a. didn’t like this one enough to booktalk)
Michelle Sanderson may appear to be a strong, independent woman, but on the inside, she’s still the wounded girl who fled home years ago. A young army vet, Michelle returns to the quaint Blackberry Island Inn to claim her inheritance and recover from the perils of war. Instead, she finds the owner’s suite occupied by the last person she wants to see.
Carly Williams and Michelle were once inseparable, until a shocking betrayal destroyed their friendship. And now Carly is implicated in the financial disaster lurking behind the inn’s cheerful veneer.
Single mother Carly has weathered rumors, lies and secrets for a lifetime, and is finally starting to move forward with love and life. But if the Blackberry Island Inn goes under, Carly and her daughter will go with it.
To save their livelihoods, Carly and Michelle will undertake a turbulent truce. It’ll take more than a successful season to move beyond their devastating past, but with a little luck and a beautiful summer, they may just rediscover the friendship of a lifetime.
Review
Right from the beginning of this book I had some confusion…
Issues:
- I get that a bunch of sh*t went down in High School – but I don’t know how successful the introduction of the Ellen character was. On Michelle’s re-meet they seemed to always have been acquaintances. From Carly’s point of view they were once friends (all three of them) now they’re enemies…confused…
- Don’t see how Michelle deserves to be so angry at Carly…Just doesn’t seem appropriate. Carly overwhelmingly seems to be the victim.
- How does Carly have all these amazing ideas and yet never used them at the inn? She’s always shocked that Michelle works so well with her and yet they’ve never (past the 1st day) had a business meeting that didn’t.
Biggest of all of these issues was the whole Michelle hating Carly situation. Let’s break it down…
Michelle has a crush on a guy.
Carly ends up dating said guy…Michelle never made a play for him = No harm no foul.
Carly becomes engaged to said guy
Michelle has sex with said guy right before his wedding to Carly…Carly walks in on the sexy-times. (From this point on I’ll be referring to ‘said guy’ as ‘a$$’.)
Carly still marries the a$$ and becomes pregnant.
A$$ leaves her and takes all the money.
Leaving Carly with nothing, about 8 months pregnant.
Fast forward to the beginning of this book where EVERYONE pities Michelle.
Do you understand how Michelle became the victim?
Nope. Neither did I. It eerked me to say the least.
If this was supposed to be a girlfriend novel then I want more depth and more likable characters…not just a martyr and a bitch. It took them too long to reach a reconciliation point with too much tell and not enough show along the way. And *Spoiler Alert* At the end of the book I still have no idea why everyone pitied Michelle over Carly.
This read it fell flat for me. I wasn’t getting my friendship novel…And don’t hold your breath for romance either. It’s a side note at best and comes with its own issues. You see, Carly is thought of as this big slut from High School (though she’s only slept with her ex-husband) and while I think it’s unfair for her to have this reputation she still jumped into bed with her love interest real quick. Quick like, hi I just met you and let’s have a quickie: you’ve got 10 minutes…Go!
And that would be one of the few times a sexual relationship happens in the novel. Though for Carly it held weight because she thinks this later while gazing upon her lover:
“She remembered that body from their lone but very powerful sexual encounter” (30 pgs from end of book)
What I immediately thought following my reading of this was that this ‘encounter’ (of the third kind?) was 10 minutes long and that Carly was kinda slutty.
I’ve turned into one of her high school classmates! The book did it to me. I didn’t like anyone but the dog by the end of this one. I was so sick of waiting for them to begin to change their lives and attitudes. However, the relationship between Michelle’s PTSD healing and her adoption of an abused dog was beautiful. Wish the book had been simply about that.
Rating: 1/5 This should have been a friend book or a romance book. 364 pages was not enough for this author to do both…
Sara O
thelibrarianreads 