Another Perfectly Cromulent Rom Com: What Not to Do on Vacation

⭐⭐⭐ 

I realized I have a bit of a backlog of some advance reader copies of books and annoyingly missed the pub date for What Not to Do on Vacation. It was an enjoyable enough, if completely predictable, read. Sisters Savannah, Cora, and Bianca return to the Florida beach house where they spent their summers growing up. They've drifted apart, and now Savannah--for purposes of her own, but using a dying wish of their mother's to justify it--wants to use a month at the beach to bring the sisters back together. Add in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and there you go.

As noted, this book was completely predictable. Pretty much every beat of the plot was obvious, including, unfortunately, [SPOILER: Bianca's fiancé turning out to be a jerk. I was hoping that she would maybe just realize that rushing into an engagement with someone she hadn't met in person solely to have some direction in her life wasn't a good idea. But no, Zander had to suck]. It also got repetitive; the book is told through the POV of the three sisters and Cora's love interest (and I probably would've nixed that; I think Magee wanted the audience to be sure that Jax was actually falling for Cora, but I think it would be more effective if we had to glean that ourselves), and a sizable chunk was their monologues going over the same issues over and over again. While I have no doubt that my own interior monologue is incredibly repetitive, that doesn't make it entertaining for others to read. Magee did a good job setting up the main characters' backstories; she didn't need to hammer it home so much.

I also got very annoyed that the epilogue was told in the first person after the rest of the book was told in the third person.

Magee did do a good job setting up the characters; she shows how the sisters'  parents' divorce and mother's death affected each of them differently in ways that were completely realistic. Jax possibly could've used some additional development, particularly for decisions late in the book; for all that we get his POV throughout the book, the real insights we get into him come from actual conversations with Cora (which really just shows that we didn't need his POV chapters; the dialogue was enough). I particularly appreciated Bianca's journey and the fact that Savannah's husband was legitimately a good guy. Overall, really, I liked that there wasn't really any unnecessary drama; the sisters' history was sufficient fodder for the tension in the book.

In all, this was a fairly light read that went very quickly. Perfectly cromulent.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.