Between Husbands and Friends

Rating:
Summary: Keeps You Wondering...
Review: I couldn't put it down! Everytime I finished a chapter, I wanted to keep going. A good book to curl up on the beach with.

Couldn't believe how it ended, it was a definite suprise and a definite must read.

Rating:
Summary: Unlikable people, unrealistic plot!
Review: I like Nancy Thayer's books, and was glad to find one at the library that I'd never read. Unfortunately, this one wasn't worth the effort. I found Kate, Max, Lucy and Chip to be thoroughly unlikable, self-absorbed, immature people. Maybe I'm naive, but I'd like to think that the majority of us married people out there don't have continual fantasies about members of the opposite sex! Lucy and Kate leave their two small children with a babysitter so that they can go bar hopping and dance with grungy strange men. They both get drunk, Kate goes off with the stranger she picks up and sleeps with him, and Lucy drives home drunk and makes the babysitter walk home. What am I missing!!! I don't know anybody who acts this way! It's hard to like a book when you find all of the characters so thoroughly reprehensible. They should find a nice foster home for Jeremy and Margaret.

Rating:
Summary: Plot Revealed
Review: I read this in Jan. of 01 and am just now transcribing my notes. Here goes: Trashy, but I couldn't NOT finish it. Story of best friends who go to a summer house every August with their families. Secret betrayals of friendship, a hidden illness, a birth and a miscarriage. What else do you need to make a soap-opera style plot? I give Thayer credit for her spot on descriptions of feelings one experiences after miscarriage, from envy to despair. Bottom line: Rich people with too much money and rich people problems. It didn't stay in my short term memory very long.

Rating:
Summary: Good summer reading
Review: I'm a long time fan of Nancy Thayer and have read everything that she's ever written. She has a gift for capturing the ins and outs of family life and the conflicting emotions that women go through as they marry and have children. wondering is this all there is or was I meant for greater things?

This novel is no exception. She writes convincingly of what it's like to be a mother of young children. In one chapter, the main character, Lucy, is sitting in her attic, seeking some much needed solitude, and thinking that while she is happy with her life, could she have done more with it. Should she have? She wonders what her beloved aunt, an adventerous free spirit would think of her life today if she were still alive. She also captures perfectly the longing that women feel to find that perfect friend, someone they "click" with instantly and can let loose and be themselves without fear of censor or judgement.

The only flaw in this book is the soapy plot involving the paternity of Lucy's son and using a potentially fatal genetic disease to propel the plot forward. This has been done in countless novels, including Daybreak by Belva Plain, who used it much more effectively.

Aside from that minor quibble, this is a good book to enjoy while lazing in the sun on a warm summer day.

Rating:
Summary: What an engrossing read!!
Review: If reality hasn't intruded into my daily life, I think I would have finished this book in an afternoon. It's that engrossing.

This book explores the relationships between Kate and Lucy ~~ two women with two children and their husbands. It is a complicated relationship burdened with secrets and dreams. When Lucy finds out that her son is diagonosed with cystic fibrosis, the relationships began to unravel.

I would have given this book a five ~~ but when Lucy blurted out her great secret, it was written very awkwardly and there wasn't enough depth into the story to give the readers why she panicked like she did. And Lucy was way too pact with her husband's trangressions with her best friend ~~ if it was me, despite me making the same mistake seven years earlier ~~ I would still be raging and fighting for my husband instead of taking everything passively and hiding my head.

Other than that, this book is well-written and enjoyable!! I really hated to put it down ~~ as I want some answers to my questions! But it is thoroughly enjoyable! I highly recommend this book to anyone with an afternoon off from work. It's one of those lazy days to spend on this book. Take it out to your hammock and swing in the spring breeze while reading this book!

4-25-02

Rating:
Summary: WAY too Jerry Springer
Review: Of course, if your idea of a good read is a soap opera between book covers, this may well appeal to you. I have read Ms. Thayer's more recent release, Custody, which I found somewhat more entertaining, but Between Husbands and Friends is not, in my opinion, up to her usual standards.

Rating:
Summary: WAY too Jerry Springer
Review: Of course, if your idea of a good read is a soap opera between book covers, this may well appeal to you. I have read Ms. Thayer's more recent release, Custody, which I found somewhat more entertaining, but Between Husbands and Friends is not, in my opinion, up to her usual standards.

Rating:
Summary: Got better and better...
Review: The emotions are exaggerated, the plot a bit contrived, and the characters somewhat stereotypical. Still, this is an inviting book to while the day away with. Nancy Thayer brings her considerable talent to bear in this story of two families that truly love each other. The wives are best friends, the husbands very close, the children devoted to each other. Into this idyllic setting come secrets, death, terminal illness, infidelity, divorce, and all the other elements that make for an interesting read.

Protagonist Lucy West married young and, although she loves her husband Max, she is vulnerable to other men. Her character is tested as she decides to whom she owes more loyalty---her husband or her best friend Kate. Over the course of a ten-year friendship, husbands are swapped and friendship is tested to its limits as Thayer takes the reader back and forth in time in this soap operaesque saga set in Nantucket and surroundings.

What could have been a strong book on the power of friendship falters slightly by forced situations that are wrapped up a bit too neatly for this reader's taste. Still, this is a worthwhile story, though not as intriguing as Thayer's earlier effort, THREE WOMEN AT THE WATER'S EDGE, which I would whole-heartedly recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Unlikable people, unrealistic plot!
Review: This book is a must read!! I couldn't bring it upon myself to put it down. Highly recommend all to read.

Rating:
Summary: A FASCINATING READ
Review: This nobel is set on Nantucket Island and not surprisingly, a real page turner.
Ms. Thayer introduces us to two famlies; the West family and the Cunnighams, and their kids. Lucy West and Kate Cunningham have been friends for years and carry each other secrets.Their husbands have also become great friends along with their children; so one can imagine what their wonderful August vacations are like. Through an inheritance of a home in Nantucket island from Lucy West's aunt, they are able to enjoy the sea, sun, sailing and relaxing, along with tasty meals of lobster and corn which they adore.
The characterisation is great. Ms Thayer makes you feel like they are part of your family and you start to cherish and care for their lives. But aren't these families a little too perfect? Some will say yes, other will say no; they are indeed families and friends like that.......perfect.
When you get into the story you will see how a fine friendship like theirs can sometimes turn awry over one brisk mistake; a slight brush with infidelity. It's a short novel but worth it in many ways so I have given it five stars. Thanks for your lovely book Nancy Thayer.

Nutface
October 22nd 2001