Book Nook Club: Still Summer by Jacquelyn Mitchard

September 24, 2008

Still Summer by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Still Summer is the story of 3 middled-aged women who had been inseperable in high school and a teenage daughter. One woman has recently lost her rich, Italian husband making her the lonely, rich widow which prompted, and paid for, this trip. The teenage daughter gets to go along because her mother's cousin was unable to make the trip, an arrangement that didn't particularly make the teenager happy.

After a couple of days of sailing things go terribly wrong thanks to a coincidence of events, bringing out the true character and feelings of the women. The women, now without their crew, must figure out how to survive on a broken boat as they face the sun, lack of supplies, and other terrors of the open waters.

Though this book had more profanity and sensuality than I would prefer, I found that I didn't want to put it down once I got about halfway through with it. I had a test the next morning, which is the only reason why I didn't read late into the night. I just had to find out what would happen to these women and to the relationships between them. Can old friendships and the bond between a mother and her teenage daughter survive the horrors of betrayal, exhaustion, and dehydration?

I'd recommend this to anyone who would like a thrilling story of humanity at it's best and worst.