Here's to Us
by Elin Hilderbrand
Ever since we read The Island, it’s been a summer tradition for my mom and I to read a new Elin Hilderbrand novel. Here’s to Us was a bit dark for my mom’s taste, and I’ll admit that there were passages I didn’t care for, either. One of the characters is addicted to drugs, and there’s quite a bit of detail about his frame of mind, his drug usage, and how he tries to hide it from his family.
But the rest of the book is interesting in a quirky way. Despite the beach-y cover, it doesn’t exactly feel like a summer book, though. One terribly flawed man left his first wife for his second, his second for his third; and now that he’s died prematurely, the three Mrs. Thorpes gather at his Nantucket shack and talk about their experiences. With extensive flashbacks, we learn more and more about this very unlikable husband, but the three vivid heroines are fun in their melodramatic ways.
If you’ve never read a Hilderbrand, I wouldn’t recommend starting with this one, but if you’re like me and like to pick up a new one each summer, you can give it a shot. Just be forewarned about the drug use, and if you want to, you can skip a few pages here and there.
But the rest of the book is interesting in a quirky way. Despite the beach-y cover, it doesn’t exactly feel like a summer book, though. One terribly flawed man left his first wife for his second, his second for his third; and now that he’s died prematurely, the three Mrs. Thorpes gather at his Nantucket shack and talk about their experiences. With extensive flashbacks, we learn more and more about this very unlikable husband, but the three vivid heroines are fun in their melodramatic ways.
If you’ve never read a Hilderbrand, I wouldn’t recommend starting with this one, but if you’re like me and like to pick up a new one each summer, you can give it a shot. Just be forewarned about the drug use, and if you want to, you can skip a few pages here and there.