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My review: 3.5⭐
If you’re looking for a light beach read, this is not it. Not sure why it’s marketed that way, maybe because it takes place on the beach. It deals with some heavy topics.
I love multiple POV’s and here we get 3 as we follow the story of Brian and how his family deals with his brain tumor and life after he is gone. We get 2 chapters told by Brian and I wish there were more ~ like how he was dealing with what was happening to him.
Margot is trying to keep the household and their rental business afloat while living with a husband that is slowly, then rather quickly, becoming unrecognizable in mind and body. Luckily she can always count on her two teenage girls, Liz and Evy. They help out with the business and work as many hours as they can on the boardwalk for the summer. I really like the sisterly bond between them as they figure themselves out. They are always there for each other and I don’t think they fought at all.
There were a couple big invasions of privacy that I didn’t really like. I do wish they felt like they could talk to each other and not have to be sneaky. I suppose that was part of the grieving process as everyone does so in their own way, but I wanted more sadness from all of them.
Overall, some parts were slow going for me, but I would give this author a read again.
⤵ I wrote this before I finished the book ⤵
(I am not very familiar with brain tumors, but I feel like the author did an excellent job of showing what it is like to live with someone suffering from one and in turn the effects it has on the family as a whole.)
I am so glad I read the author’s note that told us that she knew exactly what it felt like since her father had the same tumor.
*Thanks to Scribner, Katie Runde and NetGalley for the ARC. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*
Book blurb: Release date ~ May 24, 2022
Set over the course of one summer, this perfect beach read follows a mother and her two daughters as they grapple with heartbreak, young love, and the weight of family secrets.
Brian and Margot Dunne live year-round in Seaside, just steps away from the bustling boardwalk, with their daughters Liz and Evy. The Dunnes run a real estate company, making their living by quickly turning over rental houses for tourists. But the family’s future becomes even more precarious when Brian develops a brain tumor, transforming into a bizarre, erratic version of himself. Amidst the chaos and new caretaking responsibilities, Liz still seeks out summer adventure and flirting with a guy she should know better than to pursue. Her younger sister Evy works in a candy shop, falls in love with her friend Olivia, and secretly adopts the persona of a middle-aged mom in an online support group, where she discovers her own mother’s most vulnerable confessions. Meanwhile, Margot faces an impossible choice driven by grief, impulse, and the ways that small-town life in Seaside has shaped her. Falling apart is not an option, but she can always pack up and leave the beach behind.
The Shore is a powerful, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting novel infused with humor about young women finding sisterhood, friendship, and love in a time of crisis. This big-hearted family saga examines the grit and hustle of running a small business in a tourist town, the ways we connect with strangers when our families can’t give us everything we need, and the comfort to be found in embracing the pleasures of youth while coping with unimaginable loss
