The Beach House | Jane Green | First Book I have read by this author

The Beach House | Jane Green | Good Book

books:

The Beach House

	The Beach House Jane Green Viking Adult, 2008 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 140 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

The perfect title for the perfect beach read from the New York Times bestselling Author

Jane Green is one of the preeminent authors of women?s fiction today, and with each new novel, her audience grows. Green?s avid and loyal fans follow her because she writes about the true-to-life dilemmas of women?and The Beach House will not disappoint.

Known in Nantucket as the crazy woman who lives in the rambling house atop the bluff, Nan doesn?t care what people think. At sixty-five-years old, her husband died twenty years ago, her beauty has faded, and her family has flown. If her neighbors are away, why shouldn?t she skinny dip in their swimming pools and help herself to their flowers? But when she discovers the money she thought would last forever is dwindling and she could lose her beloved house, Nan knows she has to make drastic changes.

So Nan takes out an ad: Rooms to rent for the summer in a beautiful old Nantucket home with water views and direct access to the beach. Slowly, people start moving into the house, filling it with noise, with laughter, and with tears. As the house comes alive again, Nan finds her family expanding. Her son comes home for the summer, and then an unexpected visitor turns all their lives upside-down.

for more information click here

First Book I have read by this author

I love this book, it is the first book i have read by this author and it makes me laugh, cry and everything in between. Very good book and makes me think ALOT

Good Book

I totally enjoyed this book and how the author brought all the characters together in the end. It reminded me of my favorite author Mauve Binchey.

Not her greatest work, but definitely not "Babyville"

I picked up "Babyville" a couple of weeks ago and realized that I have read it or have read so many books like this one that I have forgotten it. So I didn't finish reading it since there are so many other books clamoring for my attention and "Babyville" just didn't grab my attention. When the library called and told me that "The Beach House" was in, I thought it was going to be funny.

It is, but it isn't. The best thing about this book is that it's a very fast read. I read it in almost two days. Thankfully. It didn't drag nor did it sink. It is just a so-so novel from an author that I know is quite capable of producing better books. This is definitely not her best book and it is definitely right for a beach read or for a long plane ride.

This book reminds me of Maeve Binchy's short stories collection, where you have five different characters with different viewpoints and their stories intermeshed somehow into making this a novel. Green really needs to stick with novels with one main character as that is her strongest strength ... not books like this one.

There is Nan, matriach and widow who lives on Nantucket. She lives in the ancient Powell home and her son, Michael, returns home from NYC in disgrace. Then there's Daniel, a gay man who just outed himself for the first time and is in the midst of a divorce where he worries about never seeing his two daughters again. Then there's Daff, a young divorcee with a very moody teen-age daughter who decided to spend the summer with her dad. The stories are stereotpyical and predictable and unrealistic.

But if you want to escape reality for a few hours, this book would do the trick. However, hopefully sometime soon, Green will go back and write her fun novels and stick with a formula that is truly hers instead of just cranking out books that doesn't inspire readers to keep reading.

10/6/08

for more information click here