The Beach House |
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Jane Green
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Pages: 448 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0141022035
Pub: Penguin
Pub date: 2009-06-11
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 7409
Reader Reviews:
Reasonable read but not great (0/0 people found this helpful)
Ok book to read if you do not want to be challenged. The pages move along swiftly enough and reading it is a fairly pleasant way of spending a few hours but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who fancies a book from which you are going to learn something.
Perfect holiday escapism (0/0 people found this helpful)
I do quite enough thinking when I'm at work, so when I'm on holiday I crave a girlie novel that whisks me away to a world of people's lives that I can't wait to find out more about, yet don't have to think too hard. 'The Beach House' was the perfect read on the very relaxing holiday I've just returned from, I couldn't wait to pick it up and find out what was going on with the people I felt like I knew inside. Yes it was a little stereotyped, yes some of the plot twists were somewhat implausible and unlikely, but I really didn't care, I loved every minute of this book and I was genuinely disappointed when I turned the last page on the plane home last night.
Okay but still not up to Green's quality of the early days... (0/0 people found this helpful)
If you're a JG fan, go for it. But only if you want an easy, one-eye-open read for a holiday or something equally lazy. If you're new to JG, DON'T buy it - buy something from her early days (Bookends, Jemima J, Spellbound, Mr Maybe, The Other Woman, etc) or you'll never pick up one of her books again!
The first Jane Green book I ever read was "Spellbound" which had come free in a magazine. I was an immediate 'fan' and went on to read everything else she'd written up until then, loving them all. Unfortunately the "Jane Green Gravy Train" then started to take over with "Life Swap" - I really struggled with it - as I didn't feel like JG was really TRYING any more, rather churning out rather lazy, cliched stuff, perhaps because the publisher was trying to cram too many books into each year - who knows? My loyalty seriously wobbled but remained based purely on her older stuff that had captivated me so much.
The Beach House is still uncomfortably cliched in places - English Jane has become quite the East-coast-ophile - but the story was sweet and, for the first time in quite a few JG books, I cared about what happened to the characters.
Curiously enough, her latest inside bookcover mentions her new husband and their 'blended' families - I wonder if the 'lost' years of JG happened while her first marriage was breaking down and her new life was being established, and whether the themes of those stories were actually based on what she was going through at the time. In which case, JG, all is forgiven!
Fantastic Read (0/0 people found this helpful)
Throughly enjoyable read however it did take me a couple of chapters to really get into it and then I couldn't put it down!! Fantastic holiday / rainy day read.
Beach House ..... boring house. (0/0 people found this helpful)
This is the first Jane Green book I have read. I enjoyed it at the time but now struggle to remember the characters' names snd what happens to them. A light and easy read but a predictable, cliched "happy" ending with no surprises in the plot. A lack of detail in the descriptions mean it could have been set anywhere: not on the magical island of Nantucket.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Special Features -> Content Stores -> Prepare for Summer
Books -> Special Features -> Custom Stores -> Fiction -> By Period -> Contemporary Fiction
Books -> Special Features -> Custom Stores -> Fiction Complete -> Contemporary Fiction
Books -> Special Features -> Enjoy Summer
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> G -> Green, Jane
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> General
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Paperback
Books -> Refinements -> Font Size (format_browse-bin) -> Regular Size