Fantastic beach read.

This may be a bit disjointed, as I had many thoughts while trying to slog my way through this book.

1. The repetition of full names. Tom Flynn is never Tom, always Tom Flynn. Ellen Lyndon is always Ellen Lyndon. And don't get me started on Brian Delaney, Esquire. Calling him Brian Delaney, Esquire over and over got really old really fast. Word count padding at its most annoying.

2. The sheer irony of Melanie calling Brenda a slut for kissing Josh the babysitter (he's in his 20s, all good), then Melanie herself turning around and sleeping with him, is jaw-dropping. And not addressed.

3. Most egregious, Vicki has just finished weeks of chemo for lung cancer. She's fresh out of the hospital after an additional medical crisis and is still healing from said crisis. What does her father do? PULL OUT A CIGAR. In front of his supposedly much-loved daughter with lung cancer. No one bats an eye, including the author.

4. The "antagonist" is Josh's alcoholic ex-girlfriend who tells all and sundry that Melanie is sleeping with Josh. No one seems too upset by her wearying accusation. Then, seeing this little sub-plot is building zero tension, Hilderbrand kills her off. That's one way to end a useless storyline!

The first and last of Hilderbrand's books I'll be picking up. I can't even properly summarize this mess. Also? The tagline for this novel is "Three women. Three secrets. One long, hot summer." There are no secrets. The reader is fully aware of all "secrets." (I can only count two anyway.) There are no twists; this book ends exactly as one would expect.

I gave two stars instead of one because there were a few good page-turning sections.

I started reading this thinking it was going to be a lot fluffier than it actually was. I was pleasantly surprised when I got deeper into the story and found actual depth to the characters & storyline. It lagged in certain parts for me, but I was anxious to find out what happened next so I forced myself to trudge through.
I gave it 3 stars instead of 4 because I thought the ending for Josh's character was lacking some sort of closure or finality, as the 3 female characters had.
All in all a great summer read.

I really liked this book - totally got sucked into the story line - there was one small section where I felt like the author changed styles/directions too dramatically, but otherwise, a good read.

6 months later I'm finally saying good riddance and quitting this book.

Solid beach read.