Book Review: Barefoot

This was the third book that was chosen since I joined a book club in April. What’s funny is that all of the women, with the exception of myself and my friend who invited me, love romance. I’ve tried to read romance novels in the past, but I can’t get past the sugary, flowery descriptions of body parts and sex. Nope, not for me. So when my friend sent me this title, I went to Amazon and cringed at the blurbs on the cover.

Three women.
Three secrets.
One long, hot summer.

Oh, God, I thought. Please just shoot me.

I saved the book in my Amazon cart to buy later. Then I went to the grocery store for my weekly shopping and found it sitting in the rack at the checkout counter. The person ahead of me had a truckload of groceries, so I picked up the book and read the first few pages. I liked this lady’s writing style and the way her characters spoke to me right away. Okay, this book isn’t going to be so bad, I thought as I left the store.

Actually, it was very good. Barefoot is about three women, two sisters and a best friend, who escape to Nantucket for the summer. Vicky is a thirty-one year-old mother of two small children who was just diagnosed with lung cancer. Her sister, Brenda is a former college professor who was fired for having an affair with her only male student. If that wasn’t bad enough, the college is suing her for damaging a priceless painting when she flew into a rage over getting fired. Melanie is Vicky’s best friend, who is fleeing her philandering husband. Her big secret (at the beginning of the story) is her pregnancy.

The women have planned to spend the summer at the sisters’ aunt’s cottage. Brenda was supposed to help Vicky with taking her to chemo and watching her two little kids, but Brenda is too into herself and how she’s going to get out of the mess that she created for herself. She has aspirations to write a screenplay and is resentful over having to shoulder her sister’s responsibilities. So, she posts an ad on the bulletin board of the local grocery store and forgets about it until Josh Flynn answers the ad.

In the very beginning of the book, Josh rushes up to Melanie when she falls down the plane’s steps. Then he hand-delivers Brenda’s prized book (which she plans on adapting) to the cottage. It makes sense to Brenda that he should babysit her nephew. Vicky is appalled at the idea, but soon warms up to Josh. Neither of the women are aware that Josh (twenty-something) has a crush on Brenda. He quits his job at the airport so that he can babysit for her.

What I liked best about this book was the growth of each character. Vicky went through hell with her chemo and all of the emotional issues that went with that. Hilderbrand did an excellent job with Vicky and Josh, both of whom I related with on different levels. I felt as though I were there when I read their stories. Brenda was interesting as the wild sister who needed to grow up. Melanie, I felt, was the weakest character.

At the book club meeting, one of the ladies commented on the fact that she didn’t like the way that the husbands were kept in the background, that it would have made for a better story if Vicky’s husband had been in the middle of the story, dealing with his wife’s health crisis. As I’m writing this review, I find myself disagreeing. This story already revolved around four strong characters. A fifth might have been too much. I can see a separate novel written around Ted and Vicky as they deal with her cancer, though.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about people’s relationship dynamics.

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