A Week at the Shore

I've always enjoyed Barbara Delinsky novels as a sort of easy-reading, escape. Her latest, A Week at the Shore, was no different. I enjoy her writing style and in this case, I especially loved the way she evoked the beach in this novel. Her writing about the beach and Mallory's memories about the beach brought me right back to my memories of the beach. Even though my memories aren't much like Mallory's.

In A Week at the Shore, Mallory returns to her home on the beach after 20 years away. Twenty years during which she started a new life in New York City. Twenty years in which she tried to stay neutral after a break in the family that occurred when her father was witness to the disappearance of her best friend and next-door neighbor's mother. Twenty years after which her mother finally got the strength to leave her father.

Mallory is a professional photographer and she tries to make sense of the world through the lens of her camera. I'm a photography enthusiastic so that totally struck a chord with me. I also love the beach more than most places on earth. As I've already stated, bringing me back to my memories of the beach was what I loved about this novel.

The plot was just okay. A bit trite and predictable. The mystery that is the subplot is never resolved. That would have made for a more interesting storyline. However, the real weakness of this novel and what gave me pause as I assigned my 4-star review on goodreads was character development. I don't remember feeling that Delinsky's characters were so flat in other novels. The only character that I liked in this novel was Mallory's daughter, Joy. Yet I still wish that I knew her better. Understood a little more about what made Joy tick. And it's not because I didn't like the characters. I felt they were all so shallow. There was a lot more "tell" than "show" in explaining the family relationships. I wish Delinsky had looked back a little bit more, given more of a back story. And then shown character what made the girls, especially Mallory and Anne, grow into the women that they are in the novel. Their father was pretty flat as well.

And imagine, Mallory's mom and dad met at the University of Pennsylvania, where I went to school, probably at the same time as Mallory's mom.

One thing bothered me as I was reading the novel and that had to do with the title. When people go to the beach in Rhode Island, do they say they're going to the shore? Or do they say they are going to the beach? In New York City, where I grew up, we said we're going to the beach. But where I lived in New Jersey as an adult, people said they were going "down the shore." I haven't really figured out what people say where I'm living now in Florida. But I still "go to the beach."