Nice to Come Home To

Nice to Come Home To

Rebecca Flowers

Genre: Women's Fiction, or maybe Chick-lit?

Summary (from Goodreads):  A funny, entertaining novel of love and family for our times: a single woman who fears she's lost her chance at a family of her own, begins to accumulate an ad hoc one around her.

In the tradition of Elinor Lipman or Marisa de los Santos (Love Walked In), Flowers delivers a smart, witty, appealing story of love, family, and community that breaks the mold of the conventional love story-and will have readers cheering.

Everyone around Prudence Whistler, thirty-six, seems to be settling down. Her once single girlfriends have married and had babies. Her gay best friend is discussing marriage with his partner. Even her irresponsible younger sister, Patsy, is the single mother of a two-year-old. But when Pru panics at losing her mediocre boyfriend of two years-and begins to see the door to her traditional family life closing-she accidentally finds something even better: a new definition of family and happiness. First, it's the crazy cat who moves into her apartment. Then come Pru's headstrong sister and two-year-old niece. Then the niece's dog, the sister's ex-boyfriend, and, ultimately, Patsy and Pru's widowed mother. With the strength of her modern new household, Pru musters the confidence to open the dress shop she's always wanted in town-and discovers an extended family of sorts in the community of shop owners and devoted customers. It's only then that she ends up with the man of her dreams. Endearing, romantic, and satisfying, Nice to Come Home To is a charming, crowd-pleasing debut.

Review: An easy-to-read and quick-to-finish book about a very normal girl looking to find her place in life.  Pru was a down-to-earth girl with very amusing friends and family.  In fact, the gay neighbors and crazy sister were much more interesting characters than Pru, who seemed a little too boy crazy for her age, and a little snobby about her career.  Some scenes were spot on perfect - like Pru observing the competitive mothers at a party, but the scenes between her and "the man of her dreams" didn't feel very realistic.  Pru seemed to fall in love with him for no reason at all, and I couldn't understand what he saw in her.  An okay beach read, but ultimately too forgettable.

Rating: 3 stars