With a tragicomedy tone, we meet the issues unearthed by the fact that the whole family Van Meters is together in their beach house. Upper class, wealthy, member of golf clubs, the father Winn seems to have everything he wants. However, we soon discover his insecurities as he is obsessed with his business rival ( who, btw, is the father of his second daughter's exboyfriend and married to Winn's high school girlfriend) and having a serious crush with one of the young maid of honour, the alluring Dominique.
His wife is the classic glamorous wife but who has a sister, Celeste, proned to alcoholic outburts, saying whatever crosses her mind. And real life gives her a lot of material: the bride is getting married because she is pregnant (the dress needing readjustments to cover her eight-month belly), her sister Livia, heart-broken, struggling not to fall for the best man, a positively 'bad boy', a dead whale lying in the beach nearby, the lobsters bought for the special dinner with the in-laws missing, and more!!!!
The story is so well-developed that you find new details in every page, giving the characters and the plot the complexity and texture present in everyday life. You can symphatise or hate the characters' decisions and motives, but you won't be indiferent, you will feel the need to take sides, to acknowledge people's urges as possibly your own, to question yourself 'what would have I done in his/her place, to face the fact that we, all of us, are simply humans.
Ana Ovejero
mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com
instagram:ananbooks
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