An Act of Love, by Nancy Thayer (1997)
It's a second marriage for both Linda and Owen, and they bring with them children from their first marriages: Emily, Linda's 8-year-old daughter, and Bruce, Owen's 10-year-old son. Through a careful plan of family dinners and family rules, Linda and Owen make a family that works: Emily and Bruce bicker and play together like any biological siblings, and each parent loves the other's child as his or her own.
When Emily is 15, she attempts to commit suicide. She tells Linda and Owen that it was because Bruce raped her. Bruce vigorously denies it. One child must be lying. The question of the book emerges: How can two people keep a marriage intact when the child of one has committed a crime (either rape or false accusation) against the child of the other? As the plot unfolded, I didn't know if I was rooting for them or not. One thing I appreciate about Nancy Thayer's books is that she doesn't choose plots that give natural happy endings: she realizes that some things that happen in life can't be dismissed or forgotten, but instead must be incorporated and lived with. One thing I could have done without: the explicit descriptions of Linda and Owen's, er, marital relations. But I'm a fade-to-black type myself; perhaps a few spicy scenes will improve the book for others.
Selling It: The Incredible Shrinking Package and Other Marvels of Modern Marketing, by Leslie Ware and the editors of Consumer Reports magazine (2002)
If you read Consumer Reports magazine, you're familiar with the last page of each issue: the "Selling It" page, in which amusing marketing tricks and errors are printed. "Krunchy Potato Sticks"--containing no potato. "Half-price sale! Price shown is half the price you pay!"--meaning you should double every price you see. "Tabletop Grill! (Do not use on any table tops.)" And so on. This book is a whole stack of such pages, held together with moderately interesting information about marketing regulations, early marketing techniques, and big marketing mess-ups. Fun to read.
Beauty, by Susan Wilson (1996)
This modern-day beauty-and-the-beast story gains points for pulling it off, but loses points for stilted language, soap-opera-style dialogue, and an unnecessarily melodramatic ending. Some of the flaws can be excused on the basis of "creating a fairy tale mood,"--but not all of them.
Those Who Favor Fire, by Lauren Wolk (1998)
A sob story about oppressed-but-stoic residents of an old mining town would not normally be my first choice for a lazy afternoon of reading. The poetic title and intense author photograph almost kept me from even trying it. It only took 25 pages for me to change my tune.
This is a story about what happens to a town called Belle Haven when a fire begins to burn beneath it. Periodically a "hot spot" comes through the surface, pulling down a house, a car, a child into the fire. Nevertheless, people stay. We examine their motivations, and this is where the book shines: it isn't just a story about the fire, it's about the people who live there, and THAT'S my kind of book. I like to read about Rachel and Joe and their relationship. I like to hear about what happened to Angela's husband. I like to hear what it was that drove Joe to abandon his previous privileged live and come to Belle Haven. I like to read about Rachel's childhood, and about what she does with her large inheritance.
The ending left me feeling sad, and I wasn't sure I'd understood everything. A few loose ends bothered me. The pointless death of Mary Beth, a girl who would have left town with her family just a few days later, was overly disturbing and lingered with me too long. But it was the kind of book I kept itching to get back to, and those don't come along every day.
Kissing in Manhattan, by David Schickler (2001)
For the first several stories of this collection, I kept thinking I'd stop reading. Once the stories began to connect and refer to each other, I was completely absorbed. You'll have to start reading again from the beginning after you finish the first time through.
The action centers around the residents of a certain New York apartment complex. One man dresses women in expensive dresses, then rips up the dresses and makes the women look at themselves naked. Another man visits a hidden jewelry store and is given earrings to give to "the right woman." Another finds he can see into people's minds, and becomes a priest who wishes he couldn't. A fantastic book.
The Muse Asylum, by David Czuchlewski (2001)
The mysterious author Horace Jacob Little--whose name you will be thoroughly sick of by the time you finish the book--gives no interviews, no author photo, no author biography, no cover art, no information at all on the covers of his books except the bare title and author text. This utter reclusiveness causes more than one person to become obsessed with discovering the author's true identity. One man goes crazy, another perhaps follows in his footsteps. The ending is ambiguous: have we discovered the real Horace Jacob Little or haven't we? I prefer cut-and-dried endings, myself.
Almost, by Elizabeth Benedict (2001)
When Sophy's soon-to-be-ex husband Will dies, no one knows what happened. Was it suicide? heart attack? murder? What happened to his dog? Why was he selling his beloved boat? Why was he answering personal ads? Why wouldn't he visit his newborn granddaughter? Meanwhile, the cast of characters have their own problems. Sophy's friend Evan has been having an affair with a young girl, a girl who also had an affair with Evan's wife. What's the situation there, and why has the girl ditched her fiancé to come hide out near Evan?
How will the author resolve all these questions? The easy way: she doesn't. And I hate unresolved endings. Any mediocre writer can present an interesting situation, but only a good one can make sense of it. "Nobody will ever know" isn't good enough for fiction. "Nobody will ever know" means "I couldn't figure out how to end it."
I shouldn't have been surprised: the only way the author could maintain suspense throughout the novel was to use falsely ominous foreshadowing. An allusion to a horrific future event usually referred only to a minor social faux pas. And of course the female protagonist has a gay male friend: every female author of this approximate age group includes one of those.
April Witch, by Majgull Axelsson
Three girls of approximately the same age spend a portion of their childhoods in the care of the foster mother they call Aunt Ella. What none of the girls know is that Ella, a widow, had one child before her husband died: a little girl named Desirée who was born with a multitude of handicaps including cerebral palsy. The custom at the time of her birth was to put disabled children directly into nursing homes; the parents were advised to forget about the child. Desirée has spent her entire life in various degrees of care; she can't walk or talk, though she can communicate through a specially-made computer. Desirée is an "April witch," able to leave her body for anyone else's (a person's, a bird's) and travel wherever she wants to go. She haunts the three women whom she considers to have taken her rightful place in her mother's home.
Through her eyes and through the memories of the three women, we learn about the circumstances (usually horrible) that put each girl in foster care; their time with Aunt Ella and how each perceived her; their time with each other and how each perceived the others; their lives since then and how they've dealt with the lives they've been given. Christina, burned and abused and tormented by a psychotic mother, grows up to be an orderly doctor who throws up if her hands get dirty. Margareta, abandoned as an infant in a laundry room, grows up to be an astrophysicist still uncertain about her decisions. Birgitta, neglected by a dependent and incompetent substance-abuser, grows up to be an indiscriminatingly promiscuous substance abuser herself. Birgitta is most vividly drawn; Margareta least. In the end the reader feels that Desirée has found peace and that one or more of the other women may also find it.
Someone Like You, by Cathy Kelly (2000)
This lightweight women's fiction novel is perfect summer reading for those who like to be completely unstimulated on vacation. Totally unoriginal characters living totally unoriginal lives in totally unoriginal ways populate this shallow story of three female friends. There are no surprises, no interesting turns of phrase, no sudden insights into the human condition. There is nothing in this book that has not been in a million other books and a million other television shows. If you were to tell me that this book was written by a computer, I would believe it.
Leonie, Hannah, and Emma meet on an Egypt vacation. Immediately they bond, and there is much talk of the value of friendship. Leonie is a single mother of teenagers, looking for new love. Hannah is a single career woman, definitely NOT looking for new love but of course looking for it. Emma is happily married to a Ken doll, and all she can think about is getting pregnant--and resenting those who manage it. The "bad men" are bad boys through and through: gorgeous and dashing and awful. The "good men" are damaged goods physically (balding, scarred, greying, overweight, etc.) but have hearts of pure gold untainted by lust. The good men are the sort who "make love," who take in other people's children, who love dogs, who cook, who rescue women in distress.
Throughout, we learn that friendships are important, that people should say what they think, that people should stand up for themselves, that a relationship is built on trust and respect, and that infertility is caused by "trying too hard." Duh stuff.
It's a shallow book with nothing enriching or enlightening about it. Go ahead, bring it to the beach.