Pawleys Island- Review

Book: Pawleys Island

Author: Dorothea Benton Frank

Publisher: Berkley

Goodreads Summary:

Catapulted from her home, her marriage and her children, artist Rebecca Simms has come to Pawleys Island to hide herself from herself. Little does she know that on this “arrogantly shabby” family playground, she’ll encounter three people who will change her life: a wise and irresistible octogenarian who will pry her secrets from her, a gallery owner who caters to interior decorators and heaven save us, tourists, and a retired attorney from Columbia who’s complacent in her fat and sassy life until Rebecca’s stormy advent.

With characteristic humor and a full cast of eccentric and wonderfully lovable characters, Dorothea Benton Frank brings us a refreshingly honest and funny novel about friendship, family, and finding happiness by becoming who you are meant to be.

My thoughts:

I am in love with the south, or at least my romanticized version of it. One day I will live there- perhaps when home values go back up in Michigan and we can sell our house. Until then, here I am in the North, dreaming of the south. I find myself in the same reading patterns every summer - reading books set in the south, Faulkner to Tennessee Williams (love him), to Connie May Fowler (another favorite), to Dorothea Benton Frank. There are no limits or limitations.

This summer is no different. As soon as the weather began to change from the cool spring weather to the humidity of Michigan summers, I found my reading material shifting course. I picked this book up in the library, and fell in.

What a wonderful world Rebecca landed in - and such good, influential friends she found immediately. Yep, this book was true escapism. The book begins by talking about how at times we all want to just run away, start over, become someone new somewhere else, leaving our problems behind. Rebecca runs away to start over, but her new friends help her to face what she is trying to leave behind. She just gets to do it from a condo on a Georgia coastal island, with rich friends. If I were going to run away and start over, this is how I would want it to work out for me too.

Great book for daydreaming about island living in the south - makes you want an ocean view and a hammock if you don't have one, that is for sure!