The Girls of August

Genre: Fiction

I gave this book *

This is the story of Madison, Melinda, Rachel and Barbara. Now in their 40’s, The Girls of August, a name dubbed by one of their husbands, have taken a vacation by the sea every August since they were in their 20’s and their husbands were all residents at the same hospital. After a short break when Melinda dies in a tragic car accident and her husband, Teddy, the driver, survives, the women reunite when Teddy remarries and they meet Teddy’s new wife, Baby. Baby hosts all of them in her family’s grand summer home on Tiger Island (famous for being a swimming hole for Tiger Sharks). Baby is a 22-year-old beautiful woman with a penchant for walking around in the nude, whom the girls resent and leave her out of their reminiscing about their previous August visits. In a strange set of events the ladies suffer some misfortune that leads them all to reconnect and, ultimately, accept Baby as one of their own.

This is a predictable story with a set of trite characters. I realize that with summer reads, which is what this was promising to be, one expects a lighter, sillier story-line, but this, along with the overly flowery and descriptive language, was just disappointing.