A review by emmaloren
The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach by Pam Jenoff

slow-paced

• Loveable characters? No

2.25

I had a couple of gripes with this - firstly, I read the audiobook and hated the narrator.
The romantic relationships of the MC were frustrating and entirely unbelievable. There was foreshadowing in the earlier part of the book

around her ending up with Liam

but it was rushed and quite frankly, weird

that she leapt from one brother to another and everyone was seemingly so chill about it. Also, Charlie's last minute play for her after turning up with his fiancee felt incoherent.

I found that the timeline of the book also made things feel unrealistic - I kept thinking there had been years pass between the interactions of Charlie and Addie, but in reality it'd just been a few months.

Case in point: Surely if you are that madly in love with someone, you aren't just completely chill about him proposing to a new woman when the last time you saw him you were planning to get married yourselves, and then two weeks later fuck his brother and decide you're in love with him instead?

Anyway, this made me realise that whilst I LOVE WWII fiction, I am drawn to the suspense and drama of the war, and I fucking hate romance.