Books: Dune Road

Dune Road
By Jane Green
Copyright 2009
Unabridged Audio (11 hours)
Read by Cassandra Campbell

Occasionally when I listen to a book, I start to wonder if I would have been better off to read it instead. This was one of them, but based on comments I read on Amazon.com, I don't think seeing the words on the page would have made much difference.

Kit Hargrave, Connecticut mom, has divorced her husband, Adam, because he worked all the time and she didn't want to be only a trophy wife. She's settled into a small house with a lovely older next door neighbor, Eddy, who takes her in as a surrogate granddaughter. Her friend Charlie is a consumer extraordinaire who buys diamonds and lives the high life until her husband Keith informs her that the recession has cost him his Wall Street job.

Tracy owns the yoga studio and is Kit and Charlie's friend - to a point. She has a mysterious past and mysterious involvements with men, including Kit's boss, a reclusive writer.

Meanwhile, Kit still loves Adam and he loves her, they just haven't figured that out yet, and then Kit discovers something odd about her immediate family that sends things spiraling in a weird direction. Toss in a boyfriend, lots of hints of something horrible, mother-daughter drama involving the wearing of clothes, and awkward writing and I'm afraid this was a book that I kept hoping would end sooner rather than later.

Many times I wished for an editor who would have erased many sentences as I listened, particularly as the writer seemed to go around and around in the thoughts in characters' heads and then back and forth in time.

Not a bad book, but not a favorite. Okay for the beach or if there is nothing else around.