Silver Girl

by Elin Hilderbrand

[clementine]

In Elin Hilderbrand's world, everything that happened to you in high school is of the utmost importance when you're 50; everyone is nominally "liberal" but it's perfectly acceptable to struggle for years to accept that your child is gay, leading to a three-year rift between you; when your boyfriend of six months gets you pregnant and tells you, against your desires, that he's "not okay with you killing one of God's creations", you have the baby and spend thirty years married to him until he dies of brain cancer; and there is not a single problem that cannot be solved by a summer on Nantucket.

I'm not sure I want to live in this world. Well, I wouldn't mind the last part, because I know my problems are easily solvable considering what our two protagonists, estranged best friends Meredith Delinn and Connie Flute, are enduring.

Now, let me be clear. This is a fluffy beach read, and that's how I'm evaluating it. A work of literary genius it is not. But a solid, engaging bit of light reading perfectly suited to a vacation? It is certainly that, despite its questionable politics. The story is juicy, the characters have more depth than the genre requires, and the descriptions of Nantucket are compelling. It's overwritten in many places (some of the metaphors are just... no) and generally nothing to write home about style-wise, but the story itself is fun and it's compulsively readable. This is the third Hilderbrand novel I've read, and I can't deny that she knows how to come up with an interesting premise and surprisingly well-developed characters. Sure, the endings are always predictable, tidy in the most unrealistic way; sure, it's a stretch to feel sorry for a woman who falls from extreme wealth into the horrors of an upper middle-class life; sure, some of the social views displayed are questionable. But when you're literally sitting on a beautiful beach looking out at the beautiful water, this is the kind of book you want to read. (Well, maybe you don't. I do.)