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3.33 AVERAGE
3.33 AVERAGE
Ew. Ugh. Not for me. The entire book centers around 2 couples who are sleeping with each other. Bizarre & just ew.
This book gives the picture of the final break in a marriage. Two couples having difficulties go away on a vacation together. The situation brings out all the problems in their relationships.
3.5 stars - beautifully written and the kind of story where the unlikable characters made the story have more depth and meaning. I think the fact that I listened to the novel on audio rather than reading a physical copy detracted from my enjoyment because I felt that I missed some key elements to the mystery, so I might steer clear of listening to thrillers on audio from here on out.
I received a free copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review. We start out with a charming and beautiful city where two couples take a family vacation together. What was supposed to be a fun trip ends in lies, infidelity, vulnerability and a surprise twist at the end. This was a great story almost reminiscent of The Dinner by Hermann Koch in that this was a story where you really hated all the characters because they were all just awful people but at the same time they were real and relatable. I would definitely recommend this as a must read!
Hmm. This one is hard for me to comment on and rate. I'll say one thing about it to start though. It was the perfect book for me to read at the time I read it, as well as being the perfect book to read on my Kindle app on my phone. I've been doing a thing where I read more than one book at once, which has for my entire 25+years of reading been one of my no-no's. Lately, I've been more lax with that rule and I'll have one physical book, and one e-book being read on my phone here and there (You'd be surprised how much reading you can get done instead of messing around on your phone or scrolling through Insta. Any time where I would have done the social media thing, sent random text, etc, now I read and surprisingly I've gotten through quite a few books that way.) So. That being said, I've started to suss out a bit of a pattern in these reading habits, and one of them is that these (these as in books like Siracusa) types of books make the best for reading on my Kindle app. Don't ask me why, or the rationale behind it because there really is none. Maybe on my phone I'm more prone to distraction and I need something easy to engage in? I'm not sure.
Now, what exactly are these types of books? Personally, I’d label this book as chick lit, tho I think it is miles above the norm for that genre. No offense to people who love chick lit, it's just not my personal cup of tea. We all have our own lives and our own reasons for reading. Some of us read to escape the hum drum of our everyday lives. Some of us want to read about Mr. Billionaire sticking his this and that up little Miss Innocent's this and that. Some of us want to read about heroic wizards casting evil monsters into oblivion. Some of us want to read about real life, or things like real life so that we can connect and know that we're not alone. To each their own. So when I criticize chick lit, which I always will because I truly believe the quality of the writing is pretty damn terrible, please realize I am not criticizing the readers of chick lit. I could care less what each person does to destress and tune out from the real world. I'm just happy when someone picks up a book instead of watches tv, any book! Just because I think chick lit is cheesy and bad, doesn't mean I think the readers are cheesy and bad. It's all a matter of personal preference.
Okay so blah blah blah, enough about that. The point I was trying to make there and then blabbed instead for two paragraphs was that I would categorize Siracusa as chick lit. It was a domestic, family drama. Classic catch: Everybody has secrets. Not like thriller-y secrets, but it almost veers off into that territory near the end. It's already been a few weeks since I've read this so my memory is already getting hazy but it's hardly a book that needs full levels of brain power. There is Lizzie, Michael, Taylor, Finn, and Lizzie and Finn's daughter Snow. A group of friends, mostly connected through Lizzie and Finn who seem to have a sort of unspoken bond mixed with untapped sexual tension, but Lizzie is married to Michael (the novelist facing the pressure of writing a second novel after his debut novel's success) and Taylor is married to Finn, and they have Snow together, an aesthetically lovely & delicate child on the cusp of becoming a young woman who's shyness borders on disorder. This group sets off on a trip to Italy together, clear from the beginning that the results could be rather unpleasant. Lizzie and Taylor are such totally different women with such different traveling styles. Taylor insists on 5 star service at all times, where Lizzie prefers the off the beaten path, hole in the wall, authentic feeling, culturally infused traveling experiences. One can see how they might clash in their preferences. Not to mention that sexually charged dynamic between Lizzie and Finn, throw in a strange, incendiary pre teen, a cheating husband with an unworldly, unsophisticated, opportunist mistress and an exotic Italian setting and things get kooky quick.
What seems to have begun as a normal family drama escalates pretty quickly when SOMEbody's mistress shows up in Italy, and from there on out things get out of control. It was a very juicy family drama, just enough juice to make it juicy but not quite so much that it became pulpy and crossed over into thriller status. Also, I'm usually not a fan of books with unlikeable characters who aren't intended to be the foils. I tend to want the bad people punished and the good people saved slash left to live happily ever after, and even if you're not actually bad, even if you're just sorta irritating to me, I’ll probably want the wrath of God brought down upon you. Particularly the annoying women. (of course right? I'm like the opposite of a feminist when it comes to my literary opinions. I'm very forgiving of men and very unforgiving of the women.) Like here, I found both Lizzie and Taylor to be unbelievably obnoxious. Taylor with her uppity snootiness and incessant fawning over her daughter, and Lizzie with her what seemed to me epic self absorption. But yet somehow I managed to forgive Michael and Finn their blatant disloyalty, even as it led to some seriously serious consequences. I think it just goes to show the double standards not only in literature but in life. Men tend to be portrayed as the easier going ones, mischievous, bashful, contrite and women end up written as uptight. Naggy. Bitchy. Even subtly. For example, in this the young mistress is depicted as a naive. She’s very young, inexperienced and totally enamored with this much older man. But rather than portray her lover as the person taking advantage of her youth & naïveté, Ephron chooses instead to convey her as the opportunist, the girl taking advantage of an angle once presented with it (even tho she didn’t seem to be looking for one.) It’s part of this whole rape/shame culture that we live in, where a woman’s credibility is shattered for being sexual, where revealing clothing seems to suggest to certain people consent. It’s pathetic, in America in 2018 that people still find it acceptable to voice these types of opinions. But it’s a lifetime of training working against us. Do I think Ephron is some anti-feminist, who purposely wrote her females in a less forgiving light than the males? No I don’t. But double standards exist despite being flagrantly unfair. maybe that's all bullshit and I'm just a hater. But I don't think that's the case. I do love men, thats for damn sure but I also love women. I think I have to admit that that's just the reality of life. Everybody is different of course and there are easy going women and high strung men, but I'm a big believer of stereotypes existing for a reason. (Asians can't drive. Mexicans eat a shitton of rice and beans. Black people like orange soda. Latin women have tempers. Italian men are humongous flirts.) Certainly not every latin woman has a temper and eats lots of rice and beans (but this girl sure does!) and of course there are plenty of asians who are very skilled drivers. But, stereotypes come to exist because people start noticing a certain pattern, and in this case I think it's safe to say that men tend to be widely accepted as the more easy going sex. Girl on girl hate is so much more a common thing than boy on boy. Sure, it all stems from biology and our evolutionary purposes, it can be traced down to pure animalistic competition for the opposite sex. But theres a reason why men are possessive, and women jealous. Certain things are undeniably female, and that certain brand of prissiness/pissiness is just all girl. (And gay man of course. My gay bff’s can bitch moan and PMS with the best of us) But ultimately it’s that undeniably female attitude that's the sorta shit I hate. So naturally, I found myself annoyed by Taylor even as she was the one being deceived and cheated on, and then was much more generous with Finn and his charming ways..
All in all, I didn't really feel that this book had much substance. There wasn't a whole lotta depth, not to the storyline and not to the individual characters, but that was actually fine for me at the time. Like I've said a thousand times before, certain books suit certain moods and sometimes all you really want is a juicy family drama with a nice exotic locale, and this was exactly that. But I have to say that for being a somewhat superficial book, it didn’t come at the cost of the writing. Delia Ephron definitely has some skill and talent as a writer, there was not one moment throughout where I found myself rolling my eyes at the poor writing which is usually pretty common in a lighter read. I really think that if Ephron chose to invest some time and heart into going a little deeper, that she’d could do very well at writing something with a little more weight.
This was the perfect read for me at the time I read it and I would absolutely recommend this to anybody looking for something easy to get into & stay entertained. I rated it 3 stars instead of the original 4 like I’d planned because while it was good, I looked at some of my other 4 Star reads like my most recent read ‘Jar of Hearts,’ & ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ and I didn’t think this was quite as good as either of those, & so just didn’t deserve that last star. 3 stars is still good tho, in my opinion it’s just a smidge above “average.” Perfect vacation read.
Now, what exactly are these types of books? Personally, I’d label this book as chick lit, tho I think it is miles above the norm for that genre. No offense to people who love chick lit, it's just not my personal cup of tea. We all have our own lives and our own reasons for reading. Some of us read to escape the hum drum of our everyday lives. Some of us want to read about Mr. Billionaire sticking his this and that up little Miss Innocent's this and that. Some of us want to read about heroic wizards casting evil monsters into oblivion. Some of us want to read about real life, or things like real life so that we can connect and know that we're not alone. To each their own. So when I criticize chick lit, which I always will because I truly believe the quality of the writing is pretty damn terrible, please realize I am not criticizing the readers of chick lit. I could care less what each person does to destress and tune out from the real world. I'm just happy when someone picks up a book instead of watches tv, any book! Just because I think chick lit is cheesy and bad, doesn't mean I think the readers are cheesy and bad. It's all a matter of personal preference.
Okay so blah blah blah, enough about that. The point I was trying to make there and then blabbed instead for two paragraphs was that I would categorize Siracusa as chick lit. It was a domestic, family drama. Classic catch: Everybody has secrets. Not like thriller-y secrets, but it almost veers off into that territory near the end. It's already been a few weeks since I've read this so my memory is already getting hazy but it's hardly a book that needs full levels of brain power. There is Lizzie, Michael, Taylor, Finn, and Lizzie and Finn's daughter Snow. A group of friends, mostly connected through Lizzie and Finn who seem to have a sort of unspoken bond mixed with untapped sexual tension, but Lizzie is married to Michael (the novelist facing the pressure of writing a second novel after his debut novel's success) and Taylor is married to Finn, and they have Snow together, an aesthetically lovely & delicate child on the cusp of becoming a young woman who's shyness borders on disorder. This group sets off on a trip to Italy together, clear from the beginning that the results could be rather unpleasant. Lizzie and Taylor are such totally different women with such different traveling styles. Taylor insists on 5 star service at all times, where Lizzie prefers the off the beaten path, hole in the wall, authentic feeling, culturally infused traveling experiences. One can see how they might clash in their preferences. Not to mention that sexually charged dynamic between Lizzie and Finn, throw in a strange, incendiary pre teen, a cheating husband with an unworldly, unsophisticated, opportunist mistress and an exotic Italian setting and things get kooky quick.
What seems to have begun as a normal family drama escalates pretty quickly when SOMEbody's mistress shows up in Italy, and from there on out things get out of control. It was a very juicy family drama, just enough juice to make it juicy but not quite so much that it became pulpy and crossed over into thriller status. Also, I'm usually not a fan of books with unlikeable characters who aren't intended to be the foils. I tend to want the bad people punished and the good people saved slash left to live happily ever after, and even if you're not actually bad, even if you're just sorta irritating to me, I’ll probably want the wrath of God brought down upon you. Particularly the annoying women. (of course right? I'm like the opposite of a feminist when it comes to my literary opinions. I'm very forgiving of men and very unforgiving of the women.) Like here, I found both Lizzie and Taylor to be unbelievably obnoxious. Taylor with her uppity snootiness and incessant fawning over her daughter, and Lizzie with her what seemed to me epic self absorption. But yet somehow I managed to forgive Michael and Finn their blatant disloyalty, even as it led to some seriously serious consequences. I think it just goes to show the double standards not only in literature but in life. Men tend to be portrayed as the easier going ones, mischievous, bashful, contrite and women end up written as uptight. Naggy. Bitchy. Even subtly. For example, in this the young mistress is depicted as a naive. She’s very young, inexperienced and totally enamored with this much older man. But rather than portray her lover as the person taking advantage of her youth & naïveté, Ephron chooses instead to convey her as the opportunist, the girl taking advantage of an angle once presented with it (even tho she didn’t seem to be looking for one.) It’s part of this whole rape/shame culture that we live in, where a woman’s credibility is shattered for being sexual, where revealing clothing seems to suggest to certain people consent. It’s pathetic, in America in 2018 that people still find it acceptable to voice these types of opinions. But it’s a lifetime of training working against us. Do I think Ephron is some anti-feminist, who purposely wrote her females in a less forgiving light than the males? No I don’t. But double standards exist despite being flagrantly unfair. maybe that's all bullshit and I'm just a hater. But I don't think that's the case. I do love men, thats for damn sure but I also love women. I think I have to admit that that's just the reality of life. Everybody is different of course and there are easy going women and high strung men, but I'm a big believer of stereotypes existing for a reason. (Asians can't drive. Mexicans eat a shitton of rice and beans. Black people like orange soda. Latin women have tempers. Italian men are humongous flirts.) Certainly not every latin woman has a temper and eats lots of rice and beans (but this girl sure does!) and of course there are plenty of asians who are very skilled drivers. But, stereotypes come to exist because people start noticing a certain pattern, and in this case I think it's safe to say that men tend to be widely accepted as the more easy going sex. Girl on girl hate is so much more a common thing than boy on boy. Sure, it all stems from biology and our evolutionary purposes, it can be traced down to pure animalistic competition for the opposite sex. But theres a reason why men are possessive, and women jealous. Certain things are undeniably female, and that certain brand of prissiness/pissiness is just all girl. (And gay man of course. My gay bff’s can bitch moan and PMS with the best of us) But ultimately it’s that undeniably female attitude that's the sorta shit I hate. So naturally, I found myself annoyed by Taylor even as she was the one being deceived and cheated on, and then was much more generous with Finn and his charming ways..
All in all, I didn't really feel that this book had much substance. There wasn't a whole lotta depth, not to the storyline and not to the individual characters, but that was actually fine for me at the time. Like I've said a thousand times before, certain books suit certain moods and sometimes all you really want is a juicy family drama with a nice exotic locale, and this was exactly that. But I have to say that for being a somewhat superficial book, it didn’t come at the cost of the writing. Delia Ephron definitely has some skill and talent as a writer, there was not one moment throughout where I found myself rolling my eyes at the poor writing which is usually pretty common in a lighter read. I really think that if Ephron chose to invest some time and heart into going a little deeper, that she’d could do very well at writing something with a little more weight.
This was the perfect read for me at the time I read it and I would absolutely recommend this to anybody looking for something easy to get into & stay entertained. I rated it 3 stars instead of the original 4 like I’d planned because while it was good, I looked at some of my other 4 Star reads like my most recent read ‘Jar of Hearts,’ & ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ and I didn’t think this was quite as good as either of those, & so just didn’t deserve that last star. 3 stars is still good tho, in my opinion it’s just a smidge above “average.” Perfect vacation read.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
This book started out slowly and didn't really take off until about 100 pages or so. Overall the plot was interesting, but I only enjoyed 2 out of the 4 characters.
This book started out slowly and didn't really take off until about 100 pages or so. Overall the plot was interesting, but I only enjoyed 2 out of the 4 characters.
Un bel romanzo di intrattenimento, per me. Non impazzisco per i punti di vista separati, ma ascoltandolo in audiolibro la cosa non mi ha dato troppo fastidio: il fatto che ogni personaggio fosse interpreto da un lettore diverso ha reso l'ascolto più dinamico.
Book Club book. Interesting story...might need the end explained to me!