The Best of Us

Starred review from January 21, 2013
Pekkanen (The Opposite of Me) sparkles with her latest, a touching tale of college friends whose happily ever afters aren’t as perfect as they might have once expected. Dwight, the lovable nerd of the group, is now filthy rich, so to celebrate his 35th birthday, his concerned-about-appearances wife, Pauline, plans a lavish, all-expenses-paid trip to Jamaica for his longtime friends. Each couple, however, is harboring secrets. Sexy real estate agent Savannah is hiding a huge lie: her doctor husband Gary isn’t busy “working,” he’s shacking up with his nurse. Stay-at-home mom Tina and construction worker Gio, raising four children, are having more trouble paying their bills than they let on. And social worker Allie is hit with a body blow immediately before the trip: her birth mother may be carrying the ALS gene, although Allie hasn’t shared the news with her husband. All are granted a brief respite while enjoying perfect beaches, lazy days, and late-night cocktails, but an approaching hurricane will soon test everyone’s mettle—and loyalty. Lovably flawed, realistic characters and a fast-paced story make this a deeply enjoyable page-turner. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Associates.

February 1, 2013
To celebrate her billionaire husband's 35th birthday, Pauline has arranged the party of a lifetime. With his best friends from college (and their spouses) at a no-expenses-spared resort in Jamaica, what could possibly go wrong? Well, everything. Pauline herself is a controlling robot, determined to anticipate every need and extravagant desire, from arranging helicopters rides to elegant beachside picnics, replete with masseuses and hot tubs. She wants everything perfect for Dwight--after all, without him, she and her mother could never have paid her sister's medical expenses. But Dwight can never know the truth about Therese's illness. Luckily, Allie is there. Cheerful Allie, who always knows how to smooth feathers. But Allie, too, has a secret. Her biological father may have died of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), but she cannot bear to tell Ryan, her husband. Perhaps she could confide in Dwight, but what does that choice imply about the strength of her marriage? Exhausted and overwhelmed from raising four children, Tina is determined to relax and enjoy herself. Why not? Allie's mother is taking care of all the kids, and Tina's husband, Gio, still finds her attractive, despite her more matronly figure. And then there's Savannah, separated from her husband, Gary (who cheated on her with The Nurse), and hell-bent on showing off her assets to every man on the island, including her friends' husbands. Pekkanen details every menu, catalogs each event's luxuries and narrates each woman's inner turmoil. The men, even the birthday boy, are merely props for the women's troubles--that is, until Gary's sudden arrival and a Category-2 hurricane begins bearing down on the group. Another tale of female friendships conquering all, wrapped in luxury and faux danger.

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March 15, 2013

Tina, Allie, and Savannah all went to college with then-nerd, now-dot.com millionaire Dwight. Tina is a frazzled mother of four, whose oblivious husband, Gio, doesn't get why she's exhausted and worn to a nub. Allie is holding back serious concerns about her health from her husband, Ryan. And Savannah is separated from Gary but too proud to admit it even to her closest friends. For his birthday, Dwight's wife, Pauline, rounds up the college friends and their spouses for a trip to a lavish beach house. As the week progresses and a hurricane looms, all four women see shifts in their relationships with their husbands, with one another, and in their understanding of themselves. VERDICT Pekkanen (These Girls), switching among the four narrators, is deft at finding each woman's voice, displaying all sides of eventual conflicts. Her strong narrative pulls the reader steadily through the book, with tension mounting as the weather worsens and real danger arrives in the form of a hurricane. A solid entry in the "women's fiction" genre (aka chick lit that skews slightly older).--Amy Watts, Univ. of Georgia Lib., Athens

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2013
When a group of college friends is invited on a lavish Jamaican vacation to celebrate the thirty-fifth birthday of their classmate, Dwight, the women find they can't escape their everyday problems. Dwight's wife, Pauline, thinks that by giving her husband and his friends the time of their lives, she can distract him from the family secret that's behind her reluctance to have a baby. Dwight's friend Allie is waiting to hear if she has a hereditary illness that could tear apart her family, and she turns to Dwight instead of her husband for comfort. Allie's best friend, Tina, a harried mother of four, needs the break to reconnect with her husband and with her identity outside of her family, while their former dorm mate Savannah is there to forget her husband's infidelity. Alcohol-fueled evenings and a hurricane threat bring emotions to a head in this novel about honesty, relationships, and the realities of being a woman and an adult.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)