A review by lydiarama
The Co-op by Tarah DeWitt

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

After a few pages in, I thought to myself “damn, I’m going to have to read everything DeWitt ever writes now, aren’t I?” And I was not wrong! I found The Co-op after reading Savor It, and was even more impressed by DeWitt’s humor, world-building, and attention to overarching themes. It has everything I would want in a romance: prose that’s as smooth as butter, simmering tension, a hilarious voice, and characters that learn to grow together (and of course an affable, goofy MMC who finds himself enchanted by an anti-social, slightly terrifying heroine). 

The Co-op takes place in a scenic Santa Monica neighborhood, centered around one duplex in which the two main characters’ grandmothers met and fell in love. The story is broken up between past and present: “Before” sharing glimpses of LaRynn and Deacon as 19 and 20 year-olds stumbling their way through first love. In the present, with both “grands” having passed away and left their home for LaRynn and Deacon to take over, the pair now forced back together after 7 years of silence following the traumatic separation that left them both haunted, tasked with renovating the now-dilapidated site of their origin story. The novel starts at the end; bringing us back to where the characters left off, both themselves and the home a little wrecked, stripped down and in need of a new start. In order to repair the duplex, LaRynn and Deacon enter a marriage of convenience and endeavor to do justice to the place where they both first felt truly at home, without killing each other (or falling in love).

DeWitt manages to serve a fresh take on the summer romance trope, sharing nostalgic tableaus of young love and heartbreak blossoming over a summer in
a dreamy beach town. Like Spoons in Savor It, the town becomes a character itself, encapsulating the feel of being a new adult on summer break, on the precipice of big change. For LaRynn and Deacon, the time spent with their grands is when they both felt the most accepted as themselves, the love of Cecelia and Helena, as well as their love for their grandchildren, seeming to reverberate throughout the home even after their deaths. LaRynn and Deacon’s reconstruction of the house becomes a reconstruction of their idea of what happened that fateful summer, imbuing the remodel with who they are now: “he lays me down with heartbreaking gentleness—onto the bed he built, among the pillows I picked for their colors because I think they reminded me of us. Tans, blues, blacks. Sand, ocean, leather. Night skies and back seats. Maybe I picked the green tile for the redwoods and the buildings around Santa Sea. Because he and this place are part of me again.”

While having to work through the physical, foundational issues of the property, LaRynn and Deacon have to do the same to their own relationship, busting through metaphorical walls and demoing their long-held beliefs of one another. One of the (many) beautiful aspects of DeWitt’s third novel is the way the characters transform in each  other’s eyes as the duplex does the same through their shared efforts. This construction project lends itself to the idea of home, and how that can be a person as well as a place.
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