You
know, sometimes I like to ditch the complicated intellectually challenging
books. Sometimes I just gotta take a break from all the dense prose and themes
and turn my brain off a bit. There are times I just gotta pick up a good
mindless romance novel that I will probably fly through in two days regardless
of its flaws. The Guest Cottage by Nancy Thayer, is not what I had in mind.
Oh…
this was bad. I mean it. This book was pushing Twilight levels of bad. Usually
I’m not too harsh on certain books for reasons of not being in the target
audience, which might be the case here, but if Thayer’s target audience is
single middle aged women going through a mid-life crisis of sorts, then I
wouldn’t even recommend this book to my mother. (We’ll she’s still married to
my dad so….)
The
worst part about this book is that it had so many interesting ideas going for
it and the overall premise of the novel, while sounding like its straight out
of Nicholas Sparks book isn’t that bad of an idea.
So
the story follows two protagonists. Sophie, a 36 year old mother of two going
through a divorce, and Trevor, a 30 year widowed father of a grieving four year
old. Due to the circumstances plaguing the both of them, they both rent a large
cottage in Nantucket for two months, without realizing the other booked it as
well. They decide to share the cottage since its big enough for both of them
and their children. And there you have the basis for the rest of the book. Now this idea, as convenient as it makes a
romance possible isn’t a bad idea, after all they are two adults going through
harsh changes in their life and they are just looking to get away from their
lives for a bit.
Over time, the two begin to grow
close... I think, and supposedly bond over their losses. I say supposedly
because they don’t really talk to each other about them half the time, and the
few times they do try to come off as strong and powerful when it doesn’t really
have an effect since most of the dialogue is very unrealistic. The romance also
seems very one sided throughout the better part of the book with Trevor
becoming infatuated with Sophie, and Sophie constantly telling herself she is
too old for him.. And she does this constantly.
This book honestly has too many
flaws too it. There are events that are literally summed up in one or two
paragraphs and repetition of doing certain activities together, and… I know
this is hard to criticize any book for this…. There is too much character
development. What I mean by that is the fact that most of the book is Sophie
and Trevor reflecting on their problems and their life. Sophie has been married
to an architect for 16 years, because she wanted to get back at her parents who
always pushed her competitively to achieve success, specifically her musical
talents on the piano. And if that sentence was a lot to take in, then don’t
worry, you aren’t crazy. Trevor actually gets less character development, since
we barely know about his childhood other then the fact his parents are somewhat
estranged. His wife, Tallulah wanted to be an actress, and she had such a
materialistic personality that she was almost never nurturing to their son,
Leo. Also, Trevor doesn’t really seem to grieve since by how Tallulah is
written, she is made out to be such an unlikable character, with the exception
of the times she is affectionate to her son.
That’s another thing, the children.
Sophie’s children are Jonah, and Lacey. They are most clichéd cardboard cutouts
of children I have ever read! Jonah is 15 years old and obviously going through
that anti-social phase where he suppressed his emotions and locks himself away
in his room with his electronics. Lacey is the typical ten year old girl who is
so wide-eyed and innocent she is practically blind to the fact that her parents
are splitting up. Leo, Trevor’s son, is actually an interesting character, even
more then the protagonists, and possibly the one redeeming feature of this
entire book. Ever since his mother’s death, Leo had developed odd behaviors. Such
as eating the same food, laying his clothes out a certain way, being possessive
towards a special stuffed animal of his and playing with legos in an obsessive
manner, that when anyone tries to touch them, he goes into a tantrum. Now this
could have been written better but I’ll let it pass because it was the most
interesting aspect of the book.
The dialogue was another thing
wrong. If it wasn’t an exposition dump or lacking logic it was just straight up
unrealistic. The first scene of the book involves Sophie wondering where her
husband is since its late at night and he hasn’t come home yet. After going
through his laptop and finding a few clues, she waits for him. The moment she
confronts him once he arrives home, he just outright says he wants a divorce. I
am not kidding, he just says it so straight forward that to call it blunt would
be and understatement. Now having gone through break ups before, most of the
time before the suggestion is actually thrown out there, there are a few lines
before it in a pitiful attempt to cushion the blow. Her reaction is also beyond
unrealistic, since usually a divorce is supposed to be… I don’t know…
HEARTBREAKING? In case you wanna know why her husband wants a divorce, its
because he fell in love with the secretary who works for him… gotta love the
humping-the-secretary cliché right?
For god’s sake, even when Trevor and
Sophie become a couple its so unrealistic. For most of the book leading up to
the point, there were small hints that they had feelings for eachother, most of
them coming from Trevor, while Sophie kept telling herself she is too old. And
then, after visiting a client from his business, he comes back to the cottage
and outright asks her to marry him, and she says yes. Wow, that was quick and
she didn’t even finalize the divorce. I don’t think she even consulted a lawyer
yet!
The point of a romance is to watch
two people grow close and become a couple. It s to see those private moments
they share together that makes their romance grow and here it was so out of the
blue, and we barely had any of those moments they are supposed to share to
signify they like each other. Just a few glances but that was it. No awkwardly
long hugs, no accidental touches. The only time we got those when Sophie
places a hand on Trevor’s shoulder or something. But that’s it.
As you can already tell. I didn’t
like this book. With the exception of Leo, the characters were uninteresting,
the dialogue was unrealistic, the story got repetitive and scenes were either
glossed over too quickly or dragged out too long, and it was always in the
wrong places. No characters that popped up made any lasting impression. The
romance might even be worst then Twilight. Yeah I said it! Bella and Edward had
more chemistry then these two lovebirds.
This book gets a one out of five
stars. Only because my scale doesn’t come with a zero..
