Thursday, April 17, 2008

Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA (eBook edition)

Last week my reading took me from Armageddon to Paradise.  That sentence comes close to encapsulating what I love about books!

After Armageddon in Retrospect I was ready for something light and fluffy.  You know, something without an ounce of reality that would take me to a land where everything was heavenly.  What better than Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA!

The good news is that this books is vintage Kris Radish.  It features  strong women, clueless guys and the requisite lesbian.  The bad news is that it is vintage Kris Radish.  It seems like I've read this all before.

I really wanted to love this book like I did Elegant Gathering of White Snows or Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral.  Unfortunately, I can't say I did. 

The relationship between Addy and her sister, Hell, didn't ring true, too saccharine sweet even when you include their fight midway through the book.  And why name a character Hell??

The clueless men in a space a very few months were transformed from numskulls to sensitive new age kind of guys.  But then I guess this is fiction.  

Addy's friends, the Sweat-hers (really!) are cartoon women with amazing empathy and almost magical powers of feminine insight.

And for the plot to come close to working, the town would need to have about fifty citizens.

About half way through I just wanted the book to end, already.  But since I am close to incapable of not finishing a book I start, I more or less sped read to the end. 

This is probably a great beach read for the uninitiated Kris Radish reader; but even then, I would recommend either Elegant Gathering or Annie Freeman, first.

I hate writing and posting negative reviews. . . I mean after all the whole point of this blog is to get you interested in reading something that is recently released and fabulous, entertaining, informative or otherwise noteworthy,  This particular book is none of those things. . .  Unfortunately, it was the only book I managed to slog through last week so it is all I have (that is current/new).

Maybe I am too jaded; so check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

Here is the publisher's information:

After twenty-eight years of marriage to her husband Lucky, Addy Lipton feels anything but happily married. In fact, just thinking of their garage, filled to the brim with Lucky’s useless junk collection, drives Addy dangerously close to plowing her car through it. But when Lucky wins a trip to paradise—aka Costa Rica—Addy has a faint hope they may be able to turn things around. Or maybe they won’t. Either way, Addy never gets the chance to find out.


On the morning of their departure, Lucky fractures his back tossing their luggage into his truck. Now, with the man she feels she barely knows anymore parked indefinitely on her couch, Addy can’t see their already shaky relationship surviving much longer. It’s time to make some big changes—and some drastic choices.


With the love and support of her devoutly single sister Hell and her workout friends, the Sweat-hers, Addy begins a crusade to revive her dreams—and she takes the women of Parker along for the ride. Soon the men will realize they’ll have to step up to the plate to keep their wives and lovers happy. And Addy will have to decide if the paradise she’s creating in Parker is big enough for two....

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