Reading Challenge Book Review: Book #1

Last week I mentioned I was joining my good friend Erica in a book challenge.  There are 50 categories, 52 books total.  I was 30 pages into a book when I decided to join the challenge & luckily, Erica said I could count that book.  So the first book I read for the challenge was The Vacationers by Emma Straub.  This book falls into a few categories, but I'm going with  "Book that takes place in another country."  I absolutely loved this story.  It takes place in the Balearic Islands of Mallorca.  I knew these islands were off of Spain, but I didn't know much. After a little Googling, it has become apparent I MUST GO THERE.  I mean, look at this place:

 



Source: Tapena



 



Part of what I loved about this book is there were so many interesting characters each with their own secrets & stories.  Plus, it felt like I was on vacation with this crazy family. Now, instead of trying to give you a summary of this book, I'm going to cheat & steal one from Good Reads.  Hey, at least I'm being honest.

 

Summary:

For the Posts, a two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends is a celebration: Franny and Jim are observing their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and their daughter, Sylvia, has graduated from high school. The sunlit island, its mountains and beaches, its tapas and tennis courts, also promise an escape from the tensions simmering at home in Manhattan. But all does not go according to plan: over the course of the vacation, secrets come to light, old and new humiliations are experienced, childhood rivalries resurface, and ancient wounds are exacerbated.

This is a story of the sides of ourselves that we choose to show and those we try to conceal, of the ways we tear each other down and build each other up again, and the bonds that ultimately hold us together. With wry humor and tremendous heart, Emma Straub delivers a richly satisfying story of a family in the midst of a maelstrom of change, emerging irrevocably altered yet whole.

 

Would I recommend? Absolutely. One category down, 49 to go!