It’s been a year of nonstop raves for Beach Read. So I finally downloaded it last week. On the Bay Beach by Provincetown, I devoured the nearly 400 pages of cynical romance. Disillusioned and incredibly sarcastic, January Andrews and Agustus Everett are visceral characters. Their dialogue is not only palpable, but realistic. Some of the conversations between the two, or even between January and Shadi, seem to have been taken straight from my own text threads.
That being said, when I consider this book from a writers perspective, I’m a little confused. This book is young. The references and thought processes, although the characters are around 30, the oldest reader I can imagine for this book is pretty much the same. This is a story for millennial and Generation Z. Which is a little odd to me, to have a book designated for such a niche subset of people. Not only that, but the story doesn’t have an incredibly long shelf-life either. With contemporary references and the use of a lot of technology, readers in 10 years won’t necessarily understand this book or the characters.
With all of that being said, it doesn’t diminish my enjoyment of the story now. Beach Read is aptly titled. Enjoy it on the sands while you can. To clarify however, this is not literary fiction or even a masterpiece of sorts. It is an enjoyment read.
Art in Your World 