silverneurotic

From Goodreads: In Philadelphia, good girl Kate is dumped by her fiance the day she learns she is pregnant with his child. In New York City, beautiful stay-at-home mom Vanessa is obsessively searching the Internet for news of an old flame. And in San Francisco, Dani, the aspiring writer who can't seem to put down a book--or a cocktail--long enough to open her laptop, has just been fired... again.

In an effort to regroup, Kate, Vanessa, and Dani retreat to the New Jersey beach town where they once spent their summers. Emboldened by the seductive cadences of the shore, the women being to realize how much their lives, and friendships, have been shaped by the choices they made one fateful night on the beach eight years earlier--and the secrets that only now threaten to surface.

 

I picked up this novel solely for the fact that it takes place (partially anyway) in Avalon, NJ. A beach town situated not too terribly far from where I grew up. While I never actually vacationed at the beach, I still felt a bit nostalgic when I first heard about this book.

What I liked: I liked that each girl had their own story and own voice. While sometimes books that shift from one perspective to another can sometimes get confusing, these girls have their own unique voices so there's not much problem with keeping them straight while reading. 

What I didn't like: I kind of felt that this book dragged. It didn't help that so many of the flashbacks were similar so it kind of felt as though I was rereading, even  though I wasn't. The book takes place over the course of a four day weekend, but with the backstories and flash backs it definitely feels a lot longer. Necessary for the story to work, but at times it did drag the story done.. 

Overall, it was an okay book. I might read another book my Meg Donohue, but I don't think I'd reread this one. I would be interested in a sequel as I do think there was a lot of open storylines that could easily transition into a second novel.