Miki B. (MikiOz) reviewed on 3/23/2010 + 43 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 3

While I love, love, love Hawaii, have been to every "touristy" island, and wish I could go to break up the winter blues every single year, this book just falls flat in too many ways to even be enjoyable. I read it while 8 months pregnant, and thus unable to board an airplane, hoping it would "take me away" to the gorgeous beaches, golf courses, and heady smell of flowers Hawaii is known for. I also hoped it would be at least as good as Mia King's first confectionary novel, "Good Things."

Instead, I found myself dragged into the negative, snippy, NYC attitude of the main character and the life she finds falling apart around her ears shortly after a move to the Big Island. This woman is so abrasive she puts SoftScrub to shame. Even as she creates a new "ohana" (family) by renting out rooms in her house to women who, WAY too coincidentally, she previously managed to tick off immediately upon her arrival to paradise, you never get a sense that she changes much throughout the novel, despite the personal growth "journey" she's supposed to be on.

Let's just say that anyone who complains this much about living in Hawaii kind of deserves some bad kharma, so sympathizing with the main character becomes a chore and makes reading the book one as well.

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