Book review: The Vacationers

Title: The Vacationers
Author: Emma Straub
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary: The Post family heads from Manhattan to Mallorca, Spain for a 2-week vacation.  The intent of the trip was multi-faceted: spend time together as a family before Sylvia headed off to college, celebrate Franny and Jim's 35th wedding anniversary and to see their son that lives in Florida.  They're also joined by Franny's best friend Charles and his husband Lawrence. But it's going to be a long two weeks.  Jim was just let go from his job for having an affair with a much younger employee.  Franny and Jim's son is a bit under water and needs to ask his folks for money.  Lawrence and Charles are trying to adopt a baby.

Rating:  This book will not change your life but it is a good summer read. There isn't a lot of depth to any of the characters, but the two weeks the family spends together passes quickly enough.  So why not a higher rating? It was good, not great.  Everything just turned out too perfectly.  I know that's the point with a summer read, but I guess I don't like books that end neatly.  Sometimes it's hard to get into too many specifics without giving away the book, so you'll just have to trust me on this one.

Book review: Apple Tree Yard

Title: Apple Tree Yard
Author: Louise Doughty
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Summary: Yvonne Carmichael is a renowned geneticist and happily married mother of two.  She meets Mark Costley in the hallway of the House of Parliament and begins an affair (yes, it is that random).  Then Yvonne gets raped and in a random act of chivalry, Mark kills the guy.  Then they get caught and go on trial.

Review:  The inside of this jacket says, "...Apple Tree Yard is a psychological thriller that calls to mind Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl even as it stakes out its own chilling territory."  I know the publisher is trying to sell books, but this melodrama makes me roll my eyes.  I'm usually able to forget these sensational statements, but in this event, it stuck with me.  Also, even though I remember reading that full sentence, I sort of trailed off at the mention of Gone Girl.  I loved Gone Girl and I kept waiting for the twist.  This book is no Gone Girl and the comparison to Gone Girl sort of ruined it for me.

The book was...fine.  Here are some of the issues I had with it:

1. The guy was clearly bad news.  He was vague about his job and all contact was on his terms.  
2. Hiding the affair after the murder was a terrible idea.  See #1.  If the two of you are on trial for murder and he asks you to hide the affair, it doesn't occur to you that he will use this against you?
3. Because of items 1 and 2, it made zero sense that he would kill the guy that raped Yvonne.  
4. I kept waiting for the plot twist.  When was it going to be revealed that Yvonne was actually behind the whole thing? 

Maybe I missed something?  But I don't think so.  Would I have liked it better if I could get around the Gone Girl comparison?  Probably not.

Book review: And the Dark Sacred Night

Title: And the Dark Sacred Night
Author: Julia Glass
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Summary: Kit Noonan has been drifting for awhile.  He's an unpublished PhD who's been job searching for some time. Finally his wife gives him an ultimatum--he needs to find his dad.  In fact, she's kicking him out of the house until he finds his dad.  Kit's mom has always hid his father's identity from him, but Kit explores other avenues to figure out who his dad is.  He finds a new family, but it also makes him realize that his "real" father isn't necessarily sperm-related. 

Review: The other day my husband Aaron told me he was reading my reviews and he commented that I was so nice in my reviews.  My response was, "I'm not trying to be the New York Times Book Review."  I've made the same comment about People magazine--their reviews are very nice as well, and are typically in the 3.5 to 5 star range.  But it did get me thinking--have I been overly nice or have I just been reading good books lately?  Or is it because even if I don't love a book, who am I to say it's bad?  I've never tried to write a book.  I've thought about it, I suppose, but I've never explored the process of writing a book.  It seems hard.  What is this review about?

My conversation with Aaron has at least for the short term led me to take a more critical eye to the books I read.  The first victim of this is And the Dark Sacred Night.  I'd like to think that even before I had the above conversation that I would have given this book three stars at most.  It just wasn't very interesting.  Yet it wasn't boring enough to put down.  It was just...eh.  The story would present a scene, meander to a flashback, and by the time it came back to the present I would have forgotten what was going on.  I also think Kit's biological father's family accepted him far too easily.  There was also more to explore--Kit's stepdad had a son that was an alcoholic, but there wasn't a lot of depth to this.  I'm always perplexed when a character's described with what seems to be important details, but the author never really explores it.  Also, Kit's wife kicks him out, but beyond the first part, there's no further exploration of their relationship.  Everything just felt undeveloped.

What do you think?  A more thorough review than what I usually put together?