So Long, Summer: Sunset Season

Well, it's happening.  We're in the last hours of summer.  For me, the most bittersweet way to say goodbye is with Elin Hilderbrand's final Nantucket novel, the aptly entitled Swan Song.

Nantucket police chief Ed Kapenash is finally retiring.  Featured in many a Hilderbrand tale, Ed has served as the moral compass of the island for decades.  Still, he can't sail off into the sunset until he solves one last case.  And it centers around glamorous newcomers Bull and Leslee Richardson.  Nantucket doesn't know what to think when the unknown couple buys a mansion on doomed property.  Spectacularly wealthy and gregarious, the Richardsons quickly become the It Couple, throwing one Bacchanalian bash after another.  Still, there's something not-quite-right about them, something their live-in personal concierge, Coco, knows all too well.

Dazzling and seductive, haunting and poignant, Swan Song is Hilderbrand at her best.  She delivers a riveting plot, poetic descriptions, and characters that we care about despite their many transgressions.  But most of all, she reminds us that we're on a journey.  

And that sometimes the sweetest season of life is the one that comes at the end.

This is Your (Beach) Life

Elin Hilderbrand's The Five-Star Weekend had been sitting on my bookshelf (horizontally, as all my as-of-yet-unread books do), since Christmas.  It's Hilderbrand's second-to-last novel, and I wanted to savor it.  Kind of like how you "savor" a box of salt water taffy by hiding it in your pantry for months and then plowing through it all in one sitting.  Because that's what happened once I finally cracked Weekend.  I couldn't put it down until I'd greedily gobbled the last lobster roll, swim, and sunset.

Newly widowed Nantucket influencer Hollis Shaw is looking for a way to break free from her funk.  So when she hears about something called the "Five-Star Weekend," she's game.  The idea is to invite one friend from each decade of her life: her teens, '20s, '30s, and midlife (in her case, '50s).  So that's what she does, even though her relationships with these women are shaky.  She's semi-estranged from one, two are enemies of each other's, and one she met only online.  What ensues is three days of fabulous food, fashion, and --of course -- fireworks.  

My favorite thing about Hilderbrand's books is how she gets inside her characters' heads.  I always feel like I know them, flaws and all, making me care what happens.  It was the same with The Five-Star Weekend.  As the online outlier put it:

' "The thing I love best about reading fiction is that it gives you a way to connect the experiences of your own life to the larger world." '

Precisely.       

I guess wisdom can come from Internet weirdos. 😏

A Book Review and a New Necklace Too: Celebrating Summer in Style

Top: Wild Fable, Target; Skirt: So, Kohl's

Shoes: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's

Bag: Gifted

Top and Skirt: Nine West, Kohl's

Shoes: ALDO, Macy's

Bag: Amazon

It's June 21, and you know what that means: tropical fits and summer reading lists.  And I don't mean Tolstoy, Shakespeare, and Hemingway (unless you're into depressing stuff by dead guys).  I mean light-hearted love stories by ladies like Elin Hilderbrand.  I marked the first unofficial day of summer with her Endless Summer, so it's only fitting to commemorate the first official day with her The Hotel Nantucket.  And it might just be her beachiest -- and most hopeful -- book yet.

Everyone at the newly remodeled, possibly haunted, and incredibly luxe Hotel Nantucket is looking for something, be it love, redemption, fame, or revenge.  Reading about it is half the fun.  The other half is Hilderbrand's lush writing, especially when it comes to her characters.  She tells the tale of a sweet but steely Minnesota transplant as convincingly as she voices a prep school prince, a glam grifter, and an eager-to-please ingenue as well as a colorful cast of others.  Disappearing into her stories is like, well, taking a vacation.  Minus the bill and the sunburn.

Of course, making jewelry is a little like taking a vacation too.  Which is how I ended up with this Parrot Paradise Necklace:

In addition to parrots, it's got flowers and even an anchor.  Also, it's big.  Really big.  Maybe a little too big.  That's why I decided not to list it.  Something tells me that I may be the only one to appreciate the way it takes up the entire front of a shirt, like a Hawaiian breastplate or an aggressively festive reverse dickey.  

It's just you and me against the world, Parrot Paradise Necklace -- offering up one awkward aloha at a time. 😏🌺

Memorial Day: Memory Lane and a Mushroom

Bag: Amazon

Top: Wild Fable, Target; Dress: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's

Sunglasses: Wild Fable, Target; Ribbons: Michaels

Shoes: Jessica Simpson Collection DSW

Bouquet: Michaels

I can't believe it's already Memorial Day!  I couldn't think of a better way to kick off this unofficial first weekend of summer than by reading beach book queen Elin Hilderbrand.  Endless Summer is a collection of short stories, extra chapters, and alternate endings to some of Hilderbrand's most beloved novels.  I very much enjoyed this, in Hilderbrand's own words, Choose Your Own Adventure approach to fiction.  I especially liked the extra chapter for Golden Girl, which reveals heroine Vivian Howe's ups and downs at the famed Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.  Her struggles undoubtedly mirror Hilderbrand's own at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and I loved seeing this glimpse of what it must've been like for one of my favorite authors to become the consummate storyteller we know today.    

Of course, it wouldn't be a holiday without festive fashion too!  For yesterday's family BBQ, I donned last year's never-before-worn, fruit-print LC Lauren Conard dress and my brand-new Jessica Simpson wedges.  The wedges' height was just what I needed to lift the (on me) floor-dusting dress from the ground.  The mushroom bag is an oldie but goody -- although a poppy would've been more appropriate.  Maybe I can find one before next Memorial Day and reenact my holiday hitchhiker pose.

I hope your weekend was filled with things that you love, setting the tone for a sensational summer! 🌞🌈

Save the Drama for Your Mama: A Beach Bard's Good-bye

Elin Hilderbrand's Golden Girl (not to be confused with The Golden Girls or even Hilderbrand's earlier novel, Silver Girl) has all the usual Hilderbrand elements.  The gorgeous Nantucket beaches, the patina of Nantucket privilege.  And, of course, the tragedy that wreaks ripples of havoc.  But Golden Girl has one thing that Hilderbrand's twenty-six other novels don't: a dead heroine.

Fifty-two-year-old Vivian "Vivi" Howe is the titular golden girl.  A successful novelist and divorced mother of three grown children, she becomes the victim of a hit and run accident on her own street.  The search for the driver is the book's central conflict.  But it's Vivi's afterlife that's really interesting.  Her guardian angel "person" guides her to the "boho-chic greenroom of her dreams" (and yes, it's painted green, or rather, Benjamin Moore's Parsley Snips).  She'll remain there for the summer, allowed to connect with her children only by giving each a "nudge" in his or her time of need, before moving on to the choir.  This got my attention.  I've always thought of heaven, the great beyond, or whatever, as a place of infinite possibility, not a place hemmed in by its own rules.  Isn't that what Earth is for?!  But if fiction has taught me anything, then it's that 1) only trouble is interesting, and 2) we don't always get to see dead people -- or, less disturbingly, the ghosts of the people we love. 

Top: Jessica Simpson, Belk's; Shorts: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's; Belt: Hand-me-down from Mom; Shoes: Chaps, Kohl's; Bag: Olivia Miller, TJ Maxx; Sunglasses: Party City; Bangle: INC, Macy's; Beaded bracelets: Mixit, JCPenney

That distressing tidbit aside, Mother Vivi in the Clouds makes for an apt plot device.  A spirit peering down at her children is a new way for Hilderbrand to weave the intrigue that her readers (this one included!) have come to expect and rely on.  Golden Girl has the extra layer of Vivi's own beyond-the-grave drama.  She's just released her latest novel, which happens to be her most autobiographical, and it reveals a secret about her past.  Hilderbrand gives us glimpses of Vivi's pre-Nantucket life in Parma, Ohio to tell a nostalgic tale about her first love, rocker Brett Caspian.  Although Vivi and Brett's song is Journey's "Stone in Love," their world feels more like John Mellencamp's Middle America.  It's romantic and edgy yet wholesome, adding dimension to Vivi's narrative, bookending her life as we know it and providing, among other things, some much-needed closure.

Unburied Treasure Necklace

That said, according to the Target exclusive afterward, Golden Girl is Elin Hilderbrand's most autobiographical novel too.  Yet even without that admission, any Hilderbrand fan knows that Vivi is a reflection of Elin.  I love how Hilderbrand has fun with this, even going as far as to speculate what her fellow islanders think of her in sections cheekily labeled "Nantucket."  (Hilderbrand's books are always broken down into sections marked by the characters' names, giving each character a point of view.  Her ability to alternate between voices is one of the things about her writing I admire the most.)  In this sense, Nantucket is a character, everyone and no one at the same time.

Golden Girl gets the gold for sure.  And not just for making us wonder what happens when we get to that big boho-chic greenroom in the sky.  But because it reminds us of what's important while we're still here on Earth.

By which, of course, I mean the fudge brownie batter ice cream at the Juice Bar.     

A Case of Space: Reach for the Mars Bar

Alien Admirer Barrette Brooch

Everyone wonders if there's something else out there.  Like little green men on a moon made of cheese or slimy mammoths that can crush us like bugs.  But Roswell-based, seventeen-year-old Mallory Sullivan is certain that Earth isn't the only game in the solar system.  A fan of outer space and all things alien, she's a regular on a message board called We Are Not Alone, or WANA.  On it, she connects -- and argues -- with a brilliant but snarky stranger.  

"Um, okay, Tote Trove Lady," you may be thinking.  "But who the heck's Mallory, and why should I put down my Pringles to care?" 

I'll answer that question by asking another.  Remember Kerry Winfrey, author of rom com-rific novels Waiting for Tom Hanks and Not Like the Movies?  Well, her first book was a YA novel called Love and Other Alien Experiences.  It's light-hearted and colorful and bubbly.  And it's about a girl named Mallory who never, ever leaves the house.  Mallory's always been anxious.  But her agoraphobia didn't start until her dad left her, her mom, and her younger brother Linc.  Now she gets panic attacks every time she opens her front door and goes to school via Zoom.  Other than her mom and Linc, her best friend Jenni is the only person she talks to IRL.  Her mom and therapist are frustrated with her, and her mom has installed a tracker on her computer to limit her time online.  It isn't until Mallory is -- surprise! -- nominated for homecoming queen that she's forced to interact with others.  This means partnering up with school heartthrob and quarterback Brad on a physics project.  It also means spending time with Brad's stepbrother, the mysterious and arrogant Jake.  Brad is a loveable dunce; Jake is an antisocial genius.  But both are important in encouraging Mallory to begin to confront her phobia.  

Now, that's all pretty out there.  And I'm not just talking about the homecoming queen part (although Mallory does get to try on some funky thrift store dresses).  The really weird thing is that in the last book I read, Elin Hilderbrand's 28 Summers, the heroine was also named Mallory, the love interest was also named Jake (sorry not sorry; surely, you saw that one coming), and there was another Linc.  Only this time it was spelled Link and he was Mallory's son instead of her brother.  I don't know about you, but I can already hear The Twilight Zone music playing.  28 Summers, by the way, is a Nicholas Sparks-level tearjerker.  No one in it has a debilitating psychological disorder; it's a drama about star-crossed love vs. humdrum marriage.  But it's super sad and made me cry.  Love and Other Alien Experiences, on the other hand, seems like it would be as serious as an abduction but instead has a top-forty-soundtrack-neon-palette vibe.  I mean, the popular guy isn't even a jerk!  Which just goes to show that it's the tone and not the subject matter that makes or breaks a novel's gravity -- and a protagonist's spirit.  On the surface, I prefer 28 Summers.  Because I'm a grown-up.  And because it includes yet another reference to Cherries in the Snow as being someone's ideal red lipstick (even if that someone is the villain).  Yet romance and Revlon aside, it's Love and Other Alien Experiences that I'm compelled to quote here today.  This is what Mallory tells us:

"That's what I like about the Internet -- I'm allowed to be silent, to think, to just sit.  I don't have to worry about whether I have something in my teeth or if my bangs look greasy.  My awkward conversation skills don't even matter, and I can be the best version of myself on-screen." (99)

A girl who's afraid to go outside but obsessed with the wide open spaces of, well, outer space, is a closed and open book all at once.  The idea of running into the mean girls at school unnerves her, but aliens?  No big deal.  The great unknown of the galaxy is more comforting than the certain uncertainty of high school and a runaway dad.  Unlike the Mallory in 28 Summers, I've never had a forbidden romance.  But like the Mallory in Love and Other Alien Experiences, I know what it's like to be more comfortable in the virtual world than the real one.  To lean in to the luxury of being able to process and curate my thoughts instead of delivering a clever comeback with zero prep time.  Also, to fart whenever I want to.     

Which is, of course, one of the many reasons that I love crafting (the solitude, that is, not the farting).  Crafting, like reading and writing, is a party for one that runs on my own timetable.  I made this Alien Admirer Barrette Brooch before I read Love and Other Alien Experiences.  But the book had been hiding, Jedi-style, in the recesses of my Amazon shopping list.  So maybe it did influence the idea for this disembodied green head floating amid the flowers.    

Tank: Say What?, JCPenney

The husband says that the alien and steer skull eyes in my felt work are the same.  Which is kind of funny because both aliens and steer skulls can be found in the desert -- the desert of Roswell.  Here's one of my much-posted desert scapes for comparison: 

Fabulous Felt Desert Barrette

This felt phenomenon is my kind of eerie; no Fire in the Sky for me!  But I like that Mallory likes aliens.  Because they, and the other people who like them, make her feel like she's less alone.  I'm glad that one of them turned out to be her person.  

And that she didn't wear that bloodstained dress to the prom.

Rainbow Swirl Summer: Revolution Ablution

 Trendy Tortoise Necklace

 Kitsch Corner Earrings

Top: Elizabeth and James, Kohl's

Skirt: Wild Fable, Target

Shoes: Worthington, JCPenney

Bag: Arizona Jeans, JCPenney

Neon stretch bracelets: Amrita Singh, Zulily

Royal blue bangle: So, Kohl's

Turquoise bangle: Burlington Coat Factory

Turquoise stretch bracelet: Cloud Nine, Ocean City

Pink flower bracelet: Belk

Ring: PinkBopp, Etsy

Barrettes: The Tote Trove

Whenever I go to ShopRite, I always stop to look at the books.  They're at the end of the juice aisle, and as soon as I spy the Ocean Spray and V8 Splash, I feel a bubbling of anticipation.  Granted, most of the titles aren't interesting.  But just seeing the covers makes me happy, and there's usually one that I've been wanting to read.  Although I can get any of them cheaper on Amazon, tossing a paperback into my cart along with my Cheerios feels decadent.  Because books are soul Oreos.  Which is to say, one of life's simple pleasures. 

My latest grocery store score was Elin Hilderbrand's Summer of '69.  After buying it, I immediately abandoned the snooze of a book I was reading and dove right in.  

Like 99% of Hilderbrand's novels, Summer of '69 is set on Nantucket and features the familiar theme of family drama.  Only, this particular tale is tie-dyed with the turmoil of the times, touching upon civil rights, women's rights, the moon landing, and Vietnam.  Add a healthy dose of coming-of-age, broken hearts, and good old-fashioned kleptomania, and you've got a bestie for the next couple of days.  This time, the family is the Foley/Levins.  Kate is the mom, and her husband David is the lawyer who handled the case of hubby number one's suicide.  A dashing lieutenant who served in Korea, the first Mr. Kate was charismatic -- but also problematic.  David is his opposite: ordinary, unassuming, and steady.  He's also Jewish, which unnerves Kate's aristocratic mother.  Kate's offspring have their issues, too.  Big sister Blair is married to a troubled MIT professor and is enormous with his twins in Boston, wild child Kirby has defected to rival island Martha's Vineyard, and former high school football star Tiger has been drafted, leaving Jessie, who has just turned thirteen, all alone.  As if entering her teen years isn't tough enough, Jessie has the distinction of being David's daughter, setting her apart from her siblings.  A sensitive bookworm, Jessie reads Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl and suffers through tennis lessons at her grandmother's club.  It's the kind of summer that makes her a woman.  No, she doesn't lose her virginity -- she's only thirteen! -- but she does get her period.  And a boatload of wisdom. 

Although Jessie is, in many ways, the main character -- indeed, the glue that holds the Foley/Levins together -- Summer of '69 isn't just about her.  As always, Hilderbrand gets into her characters' heads with her time-honored technique of devoting whole sections to each one's point of view.  Which is ideal because I get to find out what everyone's thinking and feeling.  That's what makes novels great, after all, pulling back the curtain on characters' facing-the-world facades to show who they really are.  And in this case, the historical angle only heightens these revelations.  Hilderbrand wraps her story in all the music, fashion, and tension of the 1960s to paint a portrait of Americana.

Hoodie: Gifted, Tee: Candies, Kohl's

At one point, Kirby sends Jessie a tie-dyed Martha's Vineyard tee shirt with the hopes that she'll wear it to tennis and scandalize their grandmother.  In the not-quite spirit of that, I posted this pic of the tie-dyed hoodie that my parents brought me back from Newport, Rhode Island.  I love it.  Although the image of the dog is ironic, seeing as how I hate canines.

And that makes for a nice segue into today's crafts.  Although not tie-dyed, I present the neon-studded Trendy Tortoise Necklace and Kitsch Corner Earrings to you on a hippie-happy backdrop of tie-dyed sweatshirt and faux leather fringed bag.  The necklace was a Target clearance rack item, and the charms for the earrings were vintage bits I got when my sister cleaned out her craft room.  They look more '70s or '80s than '60s (they subtly scream disco fever, if subtly screaming is a thing), but I was drawn to their clean lines and aged cream enamel.  Anyway, as they say, time is an illusion, and fashion traverses it all.  It's an anchor in an uncertain ocean, a light on the long, dark road home.

Like a serving of chick lit amidst cardboard Kind bars.

At ShopRite, the granola bars are by the books too.

A Sneak Peak and a Story

What do a little girl's tea set, pompom-filled cups from said plastic tea set, and gumball beads have in common?  (Although it's probably not too difficult to guess), you'll have to wait until next week because I'm still toiling away at new projects.  So, for the remainder of this post, I'm moving on to something else, a kind of book review-slash-fiction-exercise mash-up.

The book in question is Barefoot, by Elin Hilderbrand.  The particulars of the novel aren't important (well, they are, but not to this post); all you need to know is that one of the characters is a college student struggling to write fiction that's about something bigger than himself:

"Chas Gorda warned his students against being too "self-referential."  He was constantly reminding his class that no one wanted to read a short story about a college kid studying to be a writer.  Josh understood this, but as he rolled into the town of 'Sconset with the mysterious briefcase next to him, he couldn't help feeling that this was a moment he could someday mine." Hilderbrand, 21.

This passage caught my interest.  After all, I'm always tempted to fictionalize my own experiences, cloaking them in the dubious disguises of different ages, different towns, different names.  (Is that Technicolor-caftan-wearing craftista named Casey a crude caricature of myself?  I should add that  Casey lives on a houseboat, by contrast, paddleboats make me seasick.)  I can't help but wonder what it would be like to make up a story -- or at least the beginning of one -- that's as alien to me as Alaska.  So, I'm forgoing my usual alliteration-addled, pop culture reference-riddled write-up to give it a whirl, even if a blog, by its very nature, is the stuff of self reference.

Ever since she had entered her second trimester, Mitzi was constantly craving things.  She wanted gumballs, ice cream, and lemon raspberry iced tea, but whenever she indulged, she threw up.  "Too sweet," Dr. Lindstrom had clucked when she called his office to to ask his opinion.  She had gotten into the habit of consulting him about these prenatal yet not quite medical queries because he was the only person Mitzi trusted.  Her husband, Mark, was teaching a course about supernatural themes in Victorian literature at Indiana State University while she managed the store at home in Vermont.  The store was, inexplicably, a hardware store, something Mitzi knew nothing about.  But it had been in Mark's family for decades, so when he got the offer to teach his dream course at ISU -- his doctoral thesis had been an analysis of the nuclear family as it related to Dracula through the ages, an irony that was not lost on Mitzi -- she agreed to hold down the fort.  If she glanced at her gently rounded stomach and wondered what she would feel like once she was bigger and alone, then she didn't voice it.  Mark promised to take leave and return to Vermont closer to her due date, hastily adding that until then she would have her mother and sisters.  And, of course, Dr. Lindstrom. She nodded, trying not to think of her mother's more overbearing-than-helpful maternity advice, and of her sisters squabbling, or, in rare spells of harmony, complaining about their husbands and children.  They had six children between them, three each, and watching them tear through their mother's scrupulously maintained pink Victorian never failed to give Mitzi a headache.  Her mother never once rose her voice, instead offering the little miscreants fresh-baked cookies like the born hostess that she was.  True, her eye had twitched a bit when Caitlin knocked over her antique milk glass fruit bowl.  But she let it pass, waiting a beat before reaching into the overturned-but-not-cracked bowl and handing Caitlin an apple with such grace and aplomb that Caitlin cowered, shyly accepting the fruit and slinking off to a corner to eat it.  Mitzi's mother had the rare ability of charming children to that they both loved and respected her.  Thinking of this, Mitzi nervously rubbed her stomach, worrying that she herself would never be as effective.  Unfortunately, that was one problem that even the esteemed Dr. Lindstrom could not fix.  "Aw, screw it," muttered Mitzi, then ducked into the freezer for some rainbow sherbet. 

Book Report: Nantucket Nights by Elin Hilderbrand

Nantucket Nights, by Elin Hilderbrand, should probably be called something like "People Who Want to Go to Jail." Like Castaways, the other Hilderbrand book I recently read, Nights begins with the drowning of someone who's part of a close circle of friends. Well, at least we think she drowned. Kayla, Val, and Antoinette (the missing one) are part of the Night Swimmers club, which means that they meet at the beach every Labor Day at midnight to drink champagne, eat lobster, and swim naked, all of which I found more than a little disturbing. On this particular Labor Day, Antoinette dances into the ocean (she's a ballerina of a reclusive and suicidal bent) and never comes out, unlocking a veritable Pandora's box of secrets that - wait for it - tears the two survivors and their families apart.

All snarkiness aside, the story was pretty compelling, a real page turner. But the recklessness of the characters made me cringe. (Here's where the "People Who Want to Go to Jail" part comes in.) They destroy evidence, assault cops, trespass upon crime scenes, and incriminate each other during police interrogations. As someone who breaks out in a sweat at the mere sight of a police car behind me, I wanted them to knock it off before they'd have to wear orange jumpsuits for life.

As for the ending, it's strange yet not unexpected. It's also a little dissatisfying. Although I "got it," I felt that too many loose threads remained. But the book was still entertaining in a racy beach read sort of way, and I'll probably go on to read the rest of Hilderbrand's titles.

Book Report: The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand

Some novels use characters as props, never plumbing the depths of their personalities to reveal their greatest fears, their biggest regrets, or even what they like to eat for dinner. The Castaways, by Elin Hilderbrand, is a tale that unabashedly plumbs. The story is about the Castaways, a group of four close-knit Nantucket couples, one of which dies in a boating accident. Each of the friends takes turns discussing the incident in his or her own distinctive voice, revealing secrets that both complicate and illuminate the tragedy. The Castaways has a dark, soap operatic quality not unlike that of "Desperate Housewives" in the good old days. The characters are the kind of people you'd run into at the supermarket or at PTA meetings; well-meaning and idiosyncratic and protective of their shadows. The small-town island setting lends intimacy, quietly reminding us that each character is an island with problems isolating himself or herself from the others. Yet to solve the mystery and move on with their lives, each must band together like any castaways bent on survival. Striking a balance between literary symbolism and everyday life, The Castaways delivers an enriching tale that will resonate with readers long after they've shaken the sand from their beach towels.