Part of me wants to dog on this series, but I keep picking up the next one, so I suppose the joke is on me. Mostly I find the covers and the titles and embarrassing - Ha! - but the characters are well developed, flawed, and fun. The main relationship does fall into the romance/relationship book trope of "if they would just tell eachother how they actually feel instead of trying to 'protect' the other one everything would probably work just fine" but I suppose boring, calm, healthy relationships don't sell books. I want to get to know Peter, Cody, and Hugh better. I like the friends.

Finally getting somewhere with the key characters!

I read this book on a plane today as I was told it's best to read it in one sitting. My goodness. At only 179 pages, it still managed to leave me a bit speechless. It's written in a broken, but beautiful, chain of consciousness and prose. It took me 10 or 15 pages to fall into her mind, but once I did it no longer felt fragmented but comfortably, if not oddly, sequential. I've never read anything quite like this. A narrative in short prose, but not poetry, definitely a narrative. A walk through love, marriage, becoming a mother, martial struggles, aging - but without any of the cliches often plaguing books of that subject matter. It's not an easy read exactly, as I had to re-read several pieces multiple times, but it was thoroughly satisfying.

For quick easy mystery fixes, these are fabulous. Thoughtful plots: not too confusing but complex enough to be engaging. Falling in love with the townspeople too. Looking forward to going back into small town 90's for the rest of the series.