Saturday, June 15, 2013

Book Review: Beach Lane


Beach LaneAuthor: Melissa de la Cruz
Publication Date: May 7, 2013
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Series: The Au Pairs # 1

Three girls with three agendas and the ultimate destination: the Hamptons.

Summer in the city? Way overrated. Everybody who's anybody in New York City summers in the Hamptons. Mara, Eliza, and Jacqui all want a piece of the action, all for different reasons.

So the girls answer a classified ad to become au pairs. How bad can it be, watching a couple of kids on the beach all day? They've got the swank address, the sweet ride, and an all-access pass to the hottest social scene on the East Coast. It's shaping up to be the summer of their lives.


“Ah, de Hamptons, berry, berry rich people there,” the bearded cabdriver told Mara when she told him where she was headed.

 
Thank God for Hollywood diva crises.

 
Still, it didn’t keep the hordes of up-and-coming Hollywood stars, Grammy Award winners, sitcom royalty, rap impresarios, literary lions, and assorted social-climbing aspirants from calling the place home-away-from home three months out of the year. After all, a forty-mile stretch of beach only four hours’ drive from Manhattan (make that two if you sped on Route 27 after dinner and The Sopranos on Sundays) was a total godsend.

 
Eliza fought her way to the front armed with the magic words: I’m on the list!

Melissa de la Cruz has always been a favorite of mine, and she does not disappoint with this amazing summer series! This story follows three friends, Eliza Thompson, Mara Walters, and Jacqui Velasco, as they accept positions to be au pairs for an extremely wealthy family that lives in the Hamptons and their journey through one crazy, amazing summer. They embrace the Hamptons social scene, enter new relationships, and try to maintain their friendships with one another. This is shaping up to be the summer they never dreamed of, or prepared for!

 
This really is the perfect summer read. I spent the entire day by the pool yesterday and finished this book in one sitting. I connected with these characters and their friendships with one another. They were each very different and had extremely different agendas, but this is what always sells me when looking at starting a new book. I must say that Eliza and Mara were my favorite characters and I had a hard time choosing between the two of them. De la Cruz writes such quirky, spunky characters that it is hard to have only one favorite.

 
The best part of this book, however, was being thrown into the life of the rich and powerful while spending a short time at the Hamptons and on their social scene. This was an element that I really enjoyed while reading. Not all authors take advantage of the setting that they choose to write about, but I felt that De le Cruz incorporated the social scene and lives of the Hamptons and the people that vacation there. It is amazing to watch the girls interact with their surroundings!

 
***A copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers at Simon & Schuster BFYR in exchange for my honest review***






4 comments:

  1. Great review, I am also a huge fan of Melissa de la Cruz since I started reading her Blue Bloods series. I have yet too start her other works so I will definitely be getting on that due to your awesome review. Congrats on getting a review copy and I hope you have an awesome weekend!

    Reese's @Reese's Reviews: MA2F

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  2. This book sounds like the perfect mindless summer read! Yay!

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  3. This sounds like the perfect summer read! And shame on me, I've never read Melissa de la Cruz. New follower:)
    Esty @ Boarding with Books

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  4. How ironic; I just saw the name of this book on a "if you like this, we recommend" receipt. The cover is cute and the story sounds interesting.

    Thanks for sharing a review, Chelsey!

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