Brenda Bowen

I don't know if it was my pain medication or what, but I found it hard to concentrate while reading this book. There was too much going on and not enough to hold my interest. I just read and read and kept waiting for the point to be made.

Enchanted August was hailed as a modern re-telling of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. I have not read that book, so I can't really note how this compares to that one.

We follow four characters, Lottie, Rose, Caroline, and Beverly. Most of the book really does focus on Lottie and Rose. I really couldn't get a handle on the characters for the most part. I feel like a jerk, but I really could not stand Lottie, Rose, or Caroline. Beverly was an easy character to like and heck if it included him more, maybe I would have liked that book.

Having these three women and one man go off the coast of Maine for the month of August should have been interesting. Instead we have a lot of craziness going on with ridiculous romantic subplots being introduced. I am a huge fan of romance novels. And for me I want to read about romance. I am not a fan of affairs or anything remotely like that in my romance novels or even a hint of it. It just colors the whole thing. So for me I was just annoyed throughout this whole book.

Lottie who is angry at her husband for reasons has decided to deny the guy sex. So they haven't had sex in like a year. Who the heck doesn't have a discussion with their husband at that point?

Rose is angry at her husband and feels overwhelmed by her two twins. When the local private muckety mucky school she sends them to threatens to expel her one child, she is at her breaking point.

Caroline is an indie actress claiming to be hiding from scandal but acts like a brat through the whole book.

Beverly is mourning the loss of his partner and his cat. Like I said above, the only character I liked and sympathized with in the entire book.

We also had a lot of secondary characters that sucked all of the warmth out of the book for me. We get the character of Robert, who owns the cottage the foursome stay at, who keeps poking into their business because he has fallen in love at first sight or some such nonsense with Rose. I wanted to shake Robert throughout this entire book. His entire reasoning was just weak as anything. And no I wasn't rooting for him while reading.

The entire plot of the book is about these characters getting away for the month of August and finding themselves due to their new surroundings and people. I for one am perplexed at what they really did find in the end. Two of the marriages seemed to be pure agony and loveless from the beginning and middle part of the book.

The writing was just okay and I can say the flow was hampered by trying to follow all of these characters. And like I already said, every time the character of Robert showed up I groaned inwardly.

I will say that the one thing that I liked was the description of the cottage and the island. I don't know if this is a real place or not, (book takes place in Little Lost Island, Maine) and I am not invested enough in this book to Google to see if this exists or not. Other than that, the book doesn't have a lot going for it at all.

Eventually the book whimpers to an end.… (mehr)