Weekend Recap and Book Review

Hi Friends! I'm a little behind this week.  Miller has been in camp this week and I'm not going to lie, we've been so lazy this summer that getting up and out the door by 8:30am has been a little chaotic.  I know those of you that work have to be rolling your eyes at me, but phew trying toddlers back on a schedule is tough.

We had a great weekend though.  Friday I met my sister at my parents house so that we could take the boys swimming.

 My dad is a saint and keeps a big bucket of rocks so that my boys can throw them in the pool.  He then will dive for them or scoop them out with this special net for endless hours of entertainment.

 Wearing this Lilly Pulitzer Essie dress on repeat this summer.  I think I need to get it in another print before I wear this one out.

 Saturday night we met up with friends for a crab feast at their beach.  The crabs were delicious and the views were amazing.  It was 97 but felt like 101, so freaking hot. I had such a hard time trying to figure out what to wear, that I would look cute sweating in :) The Madwell one shoulder dress was perfect, it was loose and flowy enough to not stick to me.   A huge thunder storm came through right in the middle of the party but thankfully there was a covered pavilion we could hide out under until it passed and it cooled the air down a little bit which was nice.  I love living so close to the water in the summer.

 On Sunday we took the boys to the Jurassic Quest dinosaur event at the Baltimore Convention Center.  The boys were in heaven, especially Miller.  He is such a dinosaur lover that he was in awe the whole time.  If you have a dinosaur lover I highly suggest this event!

Last but not least today I'm here to tell you all how I felt about Whisper Beach.   If you missed it I mentioned last Monday that I wanted to finally tackle my summer reading list and gave myself a reading challenge, you can see more here.

Whisper Beach 

Synopsis from Amazon: Fifteen years ago, seventeen-year-old Vanessa Moran fell in love and lost her virginity but not to the same boy. Pregnant, desperate, and humiliated, she fled friends and family and Whisper Beach, New Jersey, never breathing a word about her secret to anyone. She hasn’t been back since. Now a professional Manhattan organizer, she returns to the funeral of her best friend’s husband. She intends on just paying her respects and leaving—though she can’t deny she also wants the town to see how far she’s come as a successful business woman. But her plans to make this a short visit fall by the wayside when her girlfriends have other ideas. 

Dorie, the owner of the pier’s Blue Crab Restaurant where Van and her friends worked as teenagers, needs help. Dorie’s roving husband spends every penny they make and now their restaurant is failing. 

Joe, the boy Van left behind without an explanation, has never stopped loving her. While he’s wary of getting hurt again, he also can’t help wondering what would happen if they took up where they left off. 

As the summer progresses and the restaurant takes on a new look, trouble comes from unexpected sources. For Van, this summer will test the meaning of friendship and trust—and how far love can bend before it breaks

I would give this book three stars.  I was excited for this book as it seemed like a fun easy beach read.  The plot and characters sounded interesting and I really wanted to see how the story unfolded.  When I first started it, I was reminded a lot of the movie Sweet Home Alabama, and the more I read it it kept seeming like it was going to be a total rip off of that.  It wasn't but it had a very similar plot line.   The story itself was very slow and very hard to get into.  I can remember looking down on my Kindle thinking I'm 50% of the way into this thing and I still can't see where this is headed but it was getting better so I kept on reading.  I kept feeling like the good part was around the corner and then it just abruptly ended, I don't want to give too much away but the ending felt someone sudden and unfinished.  I'm not opposed to authors doing this type of ending and I don't need everything to be wrapped up into a perfect happy ending but this ending just felt off, almost as if it's open ended for a sequel because very few of the initial questions of the book were answered.    

The characters were hard to like too, I'm not sure if it was just the personalities they were given or a lack of character development but I didn't find one that I really loved or was rooting for.  

If you've read this book I would love to hear what you think and if you liked it!  

Hope you all have a great week!