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The Beach House | 
 enlarge | Author: Jane Green
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $12.72
You Save: $12.23 (49%)
New (43) Used (15) Collectible (1) from $12.48
Avg. Customer Rating:  108 reviews
Sales Rank: 224
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.5
ISBN: 0670018856
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780670018857
ASIN: 0670018856
Publication Date: June 17, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The perfect title for the perfect beach read from the New York Times bestselling Author
Jane Green is one of the preeminent authors of womens fiction today, and with each new novel, her audience grows. Greens avid and loyal fans follow her because she writes about the true-to-life dilemmas of womenand The Beach House will not disappoint.
Known in Nantucket as the crazy woman who lives in the rambling house atop the bluff, Nan doesnt care what people think. At sixty-five-years old, her husband died twenty years ago, her beauty has faded, and her family has flown. If her neighbors are away, why shouldnt she skinny dip in their swimming pools and help herself to their flowers? But when she discovers the money she thought would last forever is dwindling and she could lose her beloved house, Nan knows she has to make drastic changes.
So Nan takes out an ad: Rooms to rent for the summer in a beautiful old Nantucket home with water views and direct access to the beach. Slowly, people start moving into the house, filling it with noise, with laughter, and with tears. As the house comes alive again, Nan finds her family expanding. Her son comes home for the summer, and then an unexpected visitor turns all their lives upside-down.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 103 more reviews...
 disappointing August 27, 2008
If you are a white, upper middle class, female 30- or 40-something from New England who is going through a divorce, this book may be cathartic for you. However, if you fit another demographic group, this book is probably a waste of money and time. If you can stick with it past the halfway point, it is somewhat more readable (but not great). The stream of consciousness style combined with omniscient narrator style (sometimes both in the same paragraph!)is annoying , as are all the run on sentences and bad punctuation/typos (plurals where she means possessive), etc. But primarily it's simply unpleasant to read all the whining and soul searching of every character in the book as white upper middle class marriage after marriage breaks up, combined with the absence of action (other than to pack up and travel to the beach house). A much better use of your energy would be Anita Diamant's "Last Days of Dogtown" or "Red Tent." Chick books too (although my husband also likes them), but extremely well written and researched. Diamant's fluid and lovely writing style, historical perspective, thoughtful observations, action, and the interaction between characters is gripping.
 The Beach House by Jane Green August 26, 2008
Very entertaining, though somewhat predictable. Great light summer read. Made me want to visit Nantucket. Enjoyable.
Light Read with Memorable Characters August 25, 2008
This book kept showing up as a recommendation, so I finally decided to get a copy and take it with me to the beach last week. I'm glad I did. It's a breezy read, painting a summer picture of Nantucket and filling it with an array of colorful, well-drawn characters. I couldn't help but fall in love with the central character, Nan, a kooky old broad who rides a bicycle around town and helps herself to flowers in her neighbor's gardens. The additional characters revolve around her as she, determined to keep her landmark home, ventures into an innkeeping business. I read this in two afternoons.
If you like character driven women's fiction, I also recommend: Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA, It's Not Your Mother's Bridge Club, and The Jane Austen Book Club
 A dead whale in the surf... August 25, 2008
I'm struggling to get through this book right now. The first chapter hooked me. I love the notion of Nan and her free spirit. But after chapter one, this book is hurdling downhill like a bus with no brakes. Each subsequent chapter is full of "introduction" dribble - boring. I find myself flipping the pages to the next chapter just to see if it gets back on track with anything exciting to say. Sadly, it doesn't. This book is a big, wad of love mush gone astray. For example, "She loves her daddy so much it hurts." Ugh. Can Jane Green not do better than that?
Not typical Jane Green August 23, 2008
I didn't find this to be "typical" Jane Green, which are books I usually have a hard time putting down, but I still found it a worthwhile read. The first 3rd of the book is a real grabber but it somewhat loses momentum after that. As always, she does an excellent job introducing characters and drawing you into their lives, but I struggle with the way she weaves them all together to share the high point and plot. Still, you have to give her credit for diverse story line -- an aging mother with financial problems, a coming-out gay man, a couple of extramarital affairs, a disillusioned divorcee, a troubled young girl, and a born-again gambling addict. She manages to pull it all off, which to me is real talent but very little to identify with.
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