Tag: EastCoast

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#BookReview: The Sullivan’s Island Supper Club by Susan M. Boyer

Solid Story Suffers Slipshod Storytelling. Wait. Sexton. You rated this thing 5* and yet you’re telling me *in the title of the review* that it actually had major problems? Yes. Why? Because just because *I* thought the multi-perspective/ prologue-as-flashforward approach didn’t work as well for this story as Ms. Boyer had hoped doesn’t mean that *you* will. And beyond that disagreement on storytelling (or perhaps even editing, really) approach, this actually was a solid story akin to a South Carolina Low Country version of Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid, perhaps without the atmospheric nature of how Reid chose to tell that story. It has the same level of overall drama and mystery, and the actual tale being told here was just as good if not better – really depends there on whether you prefer a more genteel Old Money East Coast lifestyle or a more glitzy Nouveau Riche West Coast lifestyle. As a native Son of the South who grew up in the trailer parks of Georgia but rose to become a Vice President at a Fortune 50 global megacorporation (which sounds more impressive than it was, fwiw), yeah, I’m far more familiar with and a fan of the East Coast version. (Though this level of neighborhood snobbery, pettiness, and gossip are all aspects of the South that I’ve truly despised for most of my life.)

Still, ultimately Boyer tells a strong women’s fiction/ drama tale that does both her characters and her setting justice, and is a great mind vacation to the area for those looking to escape whatever in your “real” life has you needing it.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Sullivan’s Island Supper Club by Susan M. Boyer was originally written on October 1, 2024.

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#BookReview: Polite Calamities by Jennifer Gold

Atmospheric But Long. This book almost feels like a Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid, but an East Coast variant. It has the same 60s era setting, the same type of fire-based setup and ending, but then tells a more “East Coast” feeling tale of the era, in some ways dealing with some of the same kinds of relational topics… but from that “Old Money” / “High Society” kind of East Coast / New England vibe.

That noted, this is far from a clone of the other, and it does what it does in showing the various relationship dynamics of its ladies – each in different societal strata – remarkably well. Gold clearly put in a lot of effort to make each of these women as real and relatable as possible, and she truly did a good job there – we begin to sympathize to a degree even with our ostensible villain of the tale… even as she continues to show *why* she is the villain. Along the way, we encounter so much of that admittedly lily white social scene and period the tale is set in, in interesting ways that show both the warts and the beauty of each of our characters.

The one real criticism I have here is that the book *does* go perhaps 30-50 pages long. Not a “Return Of The King After The Coronation” slog, but certainly a “this could’ve been trimmed a bit” feeling, at least after completing it. Now, where, exactly, could the cuts have been made… becomes perhaps less clear. Which would perhaps indicate that the book is exactly as long as it needed to be. I’ll leave it to the reader of this review to read the book for yourself and make your own calls there. (Also, please leave a review when you do. They don’t have to be anywhere near as wordy as mine tend to be – 24 words will be accepted on any review site I know of, including the big corporate ones.)

Ultimately this was a solid book of its kind, one that *should* be seen as an equal or perhaps even superior of Malibu Rising… but which clearly hasn’t had Reid’s marketing people behind it. 😉

Very much recommended.

This review of Polite Calamities by Jennifer Gold was originally written on August 1, 2024.