The Boardwalk Bookshop

The Boardwalk Bookshop
by Susan Mallery
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781867254027
Publication Date: June 1, 2022
Pages: 332
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins

When fate brings three strangers to a charming space for lease on the California coast, the Boardwalk Bookshop is born. Part bookstore, part gift shop, part bakery, it’s a dream come true for Bree, Mikki and Ashley. But while their business is thriving, their personal lives are...not.

Bree, wounded by brilliant but cold parents and her late husband’s ultimate betrayal, has sworn to protect her heart at all costs. Even from Ashley’s brother, a writer and adventurer who has inspired millions. He’s the first man to see past Bree’s barricades to her true self, which terrifies her. Mikki has this divorce thing all figured out — somehow, she’s stayed friends with her ex and her in-laws...until a new man changes how everyone looks at her, and how she sees herself. Meanwhile, Ashley discovers that the love of her life never intends to marry. Can she live without being a wife if it means she can have everything else she’s ever wanted?

At sunset every Friday on the beach in front of the Boardwalk Bookshop, the three friends share a champagne toast. As their bond grows closer, they challenge one another to become the best versions of themselves in this heartachingly beautiful story of friendship, sisterhood and the transformative power of love.

Another LT Recommendation and another average-ish read.  It would have been better but …

In my own categorisation system, I’ve got this under ‘chick-lit’, a term that offends many but I have no problem with.  It’s a book written by a woman, about young women and their issues.  My best comparison would be to Mary Kay Andrews, except these women (and their men) all talk very explicitly about sex.  Why is this weird?  Well, because the story itself has no explicit sex scenes, or even any implicit sex scenes – it’s all very vanilla.  Except for these random conversations where they start throwing around language and topics that are usually reserved for actual sex scenes.  I like to think I have a wide variety of acquaintances and I no no-one who talks like this, although maybe they do in the privacy of their own home.  Either way, it was jarring and felt out of sync with the rest of the story’s style.

Putting that aside, the story was good.  All three of the females are confronted with challenges, and one of them is pretty broken.  I found her annoying.  Not because I didn’t like her (she’s very together for someone so broken), but because the author harped on about her broken-ness and by about 75% in, it felt way over played.

I’m not sorry I read it, but I’m unlikely to seek out any more of her work.  I genuinely enjoy a good chick-lit once in awhile, but this one felt like it was trying a little bit too hard to be something else, and I have no idea what.