3.1 out of 4.
Not quite a sunny beach read but rather a gloomy portrait of reality with doses of soap opera.
I noticed that a large portion of people have paralleled this story with Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility”. I never read any of Jane Austen (I know, I know, what am I thinking?) but I would hope that the “Sense and Sensibility” was more involved than this one was. I found myself heading down several different paths and couldn’t keep everything straight.
Schine’s “The Three Weissmanns of Wesport” is about Betty, a mother of two girls that just got served divorce papers. She is around 75 years old and could not imagine this late in the game having a huge impact come down on her like this. She thought her life was on a solid familiar ground. Even worse the husband is involved in a relationship with a woman half of his age who wants their 3 million dollar New York apartment to stay with them. Forced to exit the house until the papers are all signed, Betty and her two daughters decided to live in Cousin Lou’s beach side home in Westport Connecticut. Betty’s request to move could not come soon enough for her middle-aged girls because they had some unresolved issues as well they needed to tackle in some isolation.
Miranda is about to be a bankrupt literary agent because a large portion of her book deals have turned out to be frauds. She has never been married and has no children. Annie the more reliable sister has always been the protector and with both her sons off to college she has no umph in life anymore.
The craziness that unfolds is a heightened version of regular of life. Love, money, and loss. I don’t want to give away details to the unraveling but just know that it is quite wild.
I would of rated this book higher if I could of valued each person a little bit more. It was such a short read with SO many twists that I found it hard to focus on just one point and really get connected. I enjoyed it but just wouldn’t see the need to read again.
It was nice to escape some of this newly fresh fall air and dig into life that takes place during the summer though 🙂 !
Here is a picture of Sadie getting ready to head on her own vacation after finishing this book:
