lmm20's review against another edition
No stars. I gave up after 100 or so pages. I'm super disappointed, this book sounded great! Life is too short to suffer through a book this bad.
lola425's review against another edition
3.0
Don't read this is you want to fall in love (or even like) with characters, because you will not really like any of these people. What this book does do is acknowledge that not all women are interested into transitioning from parenting into doting grandparentage or that not all women turn into the grandmothers that their children seem to want. For an author to say here are these women, who just happen to be mothers and grandmothers, trying to live their lives as they chose without bowing to what society or their children think they should be doing, is a pretty powerful statement, I think. If we don't like them it may be because they aren't conforming to what we think they should be . If Bess wants to spend all her money on caftans and ill-advised lovers, who's to say she shouldn't? If Ruth finds that she doesn't exactly like her own daughter, that's honest. I probably draw the line at Dania's pushing her blackmailer to her death, but only probably.
For people looking for a short read who doesn't mind unlikable characters.
For people looking for a short read who doesn't mind unlikable characters.
rurusy's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Body shaming, Infidelity, Fatphobia, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Alcohol, Classism, Slavery, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Terminal illness, Death, Murder, Racism, and Stalking
ardiag's review against another edition
3.0
I picked up this book in my library because the description was 3 older women feel like they deserve a year off and they go to Greece. No children, husbands or lovers. But of course real life isn’t like that. Children always have ties to you. The old lovers part I’m not sure about, but they were likable enough old scoundrels. I wanted this book to be more about just the women and their time in Greece, but the way Lynn Freed wrote it is more like real life. Quick read, vaguely unsatisfying.
hardcoverhearts's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.75
Horrible book- privileged women who don't know themselves or each other and are racist, homophobic, horrible women
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Infidelity, and Homophobia
heathergrace's review against another edition
3.0
Received an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book is hard to pin down for judgment. My true rating would be a 3.5 out of 5 because some things worked really well and others did not, but I suspect it's partially my fault and not that of the book.
The premise of this book hooked me from the start: a group of older women leave their assorted children and grandchildren escape to Greece for a year, setting up strict boundaries with each other and their families which are immediately challenged or all-out crumble. Drama ensues.
This story really made me consider if there is anyone I could live with in Greece for a year, and I'm fairly certain the answer is no. In the end, this was a valuable perspective for me to read and I'm not sure if my failure to connect with the characters is their fault because we don't have a lot in common.
What I really enjoyed was how Freed crafted the family relationships. Ruth, the narrator, has a dysfunctional relationship with her daughter and can never seem to avoid conflict with her, not that either of them necessarily want to avoid it. Dania likes her daughter but often feels - and is - taken advantage of by her. Bess has never settled down and had a string of lovers. Her children are strong personalities, though completely opposite, and are quite judgmental of her choices. All three women make excellent observations about what is expected of grandmothers which had never occurred to me, a childless millennial, and I think a book from their perspectives is important.
What did not work for me was how little the motivations of the core three were fleshed out. Other than why they fled to Greece, I couldn't get a good grasp on why they made these choices. As old and new lovers come in and out of the story, I never got a sense of what Ruth and Bess were feeling or why they were allowing them to stay, encouraging them, tolerating them or dismissing them. As Dania deals with an increasingly erratic therapy patient stalking her, everyone treated it breezily until they didn't and I was never clear on what Dania was thinking, further hindered by the fact that she was the only character with no first-person voice throughout the book (Bess writes a couple of entries for Ruth's column about their adventures).
Ruth's musings become increasingly annoyed and I kept wondering whose idea was this? Why did they think it would work? It became clear to me early on that they were going to drive each other crazy, how could they not see this? Ruth seems to come to this not-so-startling realization almost halfway through the book when she says, "As it was, we'd all been so full of hope--stupid, thoughtless hope--so pleased with ourselves for our escape that we hadn't considered anything like this." By the end, I was thoroughly sick of all of them, which may have been intentional because that's how they all felt about each other after the year in Greece.
Overall, Freed's writing is strong and I want to pick up more of her work, but the characters, while interesting, were not fully realized.
This book is hard to pin down for judgment. My true rating would be a 3.5 out of 5 because some things worked really well and others did not, but I suspect it's partially my fault and not that of the book.
The premise of this book hooked me from the start: a group of older women leave their assorted children and grandchildren escape to Greece for a year, setting up strict boundaries with each other and their families which are immediately challenged or all-out crumble. Drama ensues.
This story really made me consider if there is anyone I could live with in Greece for a year, and I'm fairly certain the answer is no. In the end, this was a valuable perspective for me to read and I'm not sure if my failure to connect with the characters is their fault because we don't have a lot in common.
What I really enjoyed was how Freed crafted the family relationships. Ruth, the narrator, has a dysfunctional relationship with her daughter and can never seem to avoid conflict with her, not that either of them necessarily want to avoid it. Dania likes her daughter but often feels - and is - taken advantage of by her. Bess has never settled down and had a string of lovers. Her children are strong personalities, though completely opposite, and are quite judgmental of her choices. All three women make excellent observations about what is expected of grandmothers which had never occurred to me, a childless millennial, and I think a book from their perspectives is important.
What did not work for me was how little the motivations of the core three were fleshed out. Other than why they fled to Greece, I couldn't get a good grasp on why they made these choices. As old and new lovers come in and out of the story, I never got a sense of what Ruth and Bess were feeling or why they were allowing them to stay, encouraging them, tolerating them or dismissing them. As Dania deals with an increasingly erratic therapy patient stalking her, everyone treated it breezily until they didn't and I was never clear on what Dania was thinking, further hindered by the fact that she was the only character with no first-person voice throughout the book (Bess writes a couple of entries for Ruth's column about their adventures).
Ruth's musings become increasingly annoyed and I kept wondering whose idea was this? Why did they think it would work? It became clear to me early on that they were going to drive each other crazy, how could they not see this? Ruth seems to come to this not-so-startling realization almost halfway through the book when she says, "As it was, we'd all been so full of hope--stupid, thoughtless hope--so pleased with ourselves for our escape that we hadn't considered anything like this." By the end, I was thoroughly sick of all of them, which may have been intentional because that's how they all felt about each other after the year in Greece.
Overall, Freed's writing is strong and I want to pick up more of her work, but the characters, while interesting, were not fully realized.
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