This was an overall fun, sweet book, and I liked how it was narrated by the main character looking back over his life and telling his story to an unnamed (until the end) interviewer. If you’re looking for something fast, easy, and relatively feel-good, give this one a go. In some ways, it reminded me of Fannie Flagg’s books, but I think I liked these characters more than many of Flagg’s books.
Set in 1938, after his family falls on hard times and he has to drop out of Yale after his freshman year, 24-year-old Ward takes a job at the Flying Leap, a dude ranch in Reno where wealthy women can stay while waiting to establish residency so they can divorce their husbands. His job is to act-a-cowboy, take care of the guests, and help everything run smoothly while the women sit around and wait. There are two women in particular, though, who stay in his memory and heart – Nina, who flies herself to the Flying Leap to file her third divorce, and Emily, who has caught her husband cheating and thinks she wants to divorce him, no matter how angry that makes her 13-year-old (horribly bratty) daughter who takes her father’s side.
While fairly cookie-cutter in plotline, the author does a good job in creating characters who the reader roots for and wants to see happy in the end. And without actually giving away the ending, while not everyone does end up truly happy, no one goes home too upset about the way things work out.
Ward’s character is interesting – he understands a lot of the books’ events on a surface level, but doesn’t really dig much deeper. He gives a fairly two-dimensional description of all the women at the Flying Leap, but especially Nina and Emily, even though he strikes up a temporary, because-they’re-all-there-anyway friendship with them, and it’s clear he doesn’t fully understand their motivations and needs. Seeing as he’s in his early 20s and out in the world on his own for the first time ever, this makes sense, but it does leave the reader interpreting more information than Ward seemed to have to work with when he was living through everything.
Overall, though, this was a nice change from the thrillers I’ve been reading, and I really enjoyed it.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and the Book Club Girl from William Morrow Publishing in exchange for my honest review. It did not influence my opinion.