pnutbutterprincess reviewed The Island House by Nancy Thayer
Review of 'The Island House' on 'Storygraph'
2 stars
Courtney, the main character in The Island House, spends her summers on Nantucket Island with the Vickerey family, who she met years before through her best friend Robin Vickerey. This particular summer, which she anticipates being her last summer here, she finds herself having to choose between loving her childhood friend in Kansas and her long-time summer crush, James Vickerey. Add in to this Robin Vickerey's big "secret," which she's kept from even Courtney, her closest friend, and the oldest Vickerey son's struggles with mental illness, and it seems that everyone in the story is involved in intrigue of some sort, though of course everything works out in the end, if not entirely as everyone expects.
Though I'm still not a fan of chick lit, this was was infinitely more palatable than the first chick lit book I read years ago. I find it interesting that although I read …
Courtney, the main character in The Island House, spends her summers on Nantucket Island with the Vickerey family, who she met years before through her best friend Robin Vickerey. This particular summer, which she anticipates being her last summer here, she finds herself having to choose between loving her childhood friend in Kansas and her long-time summer crush, James Vickerey. Add in to this Robin Vickerey's big "secret," which she's kept from even Courtney, her closest friend, and the oldest Vickerey son's struggles with mental illness, and it seems that everyone in the story is involved in intrigue of some sort, though of course everything works out in the end, if not entirely as everyone expects.
Though I'm still not a fan of chick lit, this was was infinitely more palatable than the first chick lit book I read years ago. I find it interesting that although I read fanfiction which often focuses exclusively on relationships, books such as this one which revolve around nothing but people's romantic relationships, bore and tire me. While the nuances around mental illness somewhat increased my interest in this book, I still found the way it ultimately paired people off to be a bit of an attempt to tie everything together and make everyone happy, when in fact that never happens. This is my main gripe about chick flicks, chick lit, and similar genres of film and literature. Nothing ever happens that way, and to make it seem as though it does, as though four to six couples can end a book happily coupled off, all simultaneously realizing that they all love each other is normal, or even mildly believable.
Maybe it's my own romantic frustration speaking, but genres intended to feed towards whatever itch this book is trying to scratch don't do it for me beyond perhaps being a way to pass some time on a plane, as this one did.
