About the Book:
Dear Friends and Neighbors: How did life become so complicated? One minute I'm dating the hottest man in Dallas and the next I'm back in Cedar Dell, Texas, surrounded by grannies, gossip, and green bean casserole -- and helping my dad recuperate from a car accident. Did I happen to mention that I caused a scandal in town when I got pregnant at seventeen? No one has ever forgiven me -- not my hard-hearted father, my brother Mr. Perfect, or my pregnant-for-the-first-time-at-forty sister who's gone totally hormonal.
As if this weren't enough, who should also be back in town but Max Cooper, the former high school football star, who is my teenage son's father. And now he wants to date me?!
Who ever thought that so many new horizons and second chances would open for me during one long, hot Texas summer?
Kate
My Comments:
I didn't read this book; I listened to it. I'm not generally an audio book person but I was in the library last Saturday and this caught my eye. Since I've started visiting my Dad, who lives an hour and a half away, most Saturdays, I thought perhaps this would be a nice way to pass the car time.
This is the story of Kate returning home to a small town where she is the object of gossip, until surprisingly, one revelation makes it all go away. It is the story of her relationship with her father and her siblings as well as the story of her romantic life. I think the author did a good job of weaving those threads together to create a story that was more than just a standard romance. However, some of it was really overdone, I think. I'll admit my experience in small town living is pretty limited, however, I find it hard to believe that she is still considered "The Cedar Dell Slut" seventeen years after having a baby out of wedlock, or that the name of her son's father was of all that great interest to all that many people. I can't quite figure out why someone who felt as rejected by her father as she did agreed to give up her life to help him. I'm not sure what she sees in Max Cooper either--I personally preferred the rich lawyer, who seemed a lot more interested in helping her than in taking care of himself.
What about the audio part? Well, I doubt I'll ever become a real fan of audio books. To put it simply, they just take too long. I doubt it would take me much more than four hours to read this 352 page book; on CD it was over ten hour long. While my husband is correct when he said "Even you can't read and drive at the same time", I don't like to leave books hanging. Therefore, rather than waiting four more weeks to finish (3 hrs per week while driving to and from Mississippi) I sat and listened to it at home, and that just took too long.
I do think that listening to someone read and change her voice a bit for each character added depth to the book that I wouldn't get reading it at my usual rapid pace. Perhaps for a book that really had depth, that would make a difference.
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