Barefoot: A Novel

This book was surprisingly very enjoyable to read. I won't go into much of a plot detail however I would like to say that I really liked most of the characters. Well actually, only Brenda, Vicky and Josh really. The others weren't very well-developed and this was probably because the author deemed them to be simply supporting characters. Still some further insight into their lives would have been nice although I understand that that's not where the focus of the novel really is.

The story revolves around three women, two of which are sisters Vicky and Brenda and Vicky's friend Melanie, all of whom decide to spend the summer in a cottage in Nantucket as a means of escaping their individual problems. Vicky is diagnosed with cancer and the novel reveals in a fantastic and heart-breaking manner the struggles of patient that suffers from this diagnosis as well as the hardships of the road to treatment and possible recovery. Her struggle to survive and her fear of abandoning her two young sons and not being able to watch them grow up was very emotional and made me cry on several occasions. As a reader, you can't help but feel immense sympathy with Vicky's predicament.

The other characters were nicely-developed but I didn't really feel a connection to them. Melanie in particular, I found really annoying. She seems to be separated from the rest of the characters and their problems as she is dealing with her own but she never really attempts to understand her fellow women and what they're going through because she's so pre-occupied with her own whims. For most of the book, she just seems selfish and childish and this was particularly reflected in the relationship that she forms with one of the characters. It was something that I never understood throughout the novel and made me actually dislike the two characters involved even more.

The ending was actually quite satisfying because we learn of the fate of all three of the women even though the focus is on Vicky (obviously, I mean she DID have the biggest problem what with the cancer and all).

Overall, I think readers will find this book quite touching and a very good read and I definitely recommend it. You will laugh and cry along with the characters and you will feel part of their summer in Nantucket.

Not my favorite book ever, but I did enjoy it. Worth reading, easy and enjoyable but had a bit of a slow spot at the end.

Light and funny. Three women come together to spend the summer at a small cottage in Nantucket, Each are carrying baggage of issues and problems which they try to resolve during their hiatus.