Beach Trip

I’m a sucker for a good friendship book, I especially like groups of 4 or more friends. Beach Trip not only hit that mark, but it is written from multiple perspectives (each character) and from a present timeframe, when the group is mid-40s as well as back when they were in college and had just met.

Beach Trip follows Mel, Sarah, Lola, and Annie, four unlikely friends brought together as college roommates, through the next few decades of their lives. Each of the women has their own secrets kept and needing to confess. The women meet for a long-time coming reunion on a secluded island where Lola has a house, a yacht, and what seems to be all the things a person could ever want. Mel, snarky as ever, has written ten mediocre novels by show more now, but couldn’t keep a relationship if she were paid. Sarah has family troubles that she has hidden from her friends, and Annie has a secret kept since college. During this week of over-indulgence, confessions come, fences are mended, and hearts are broken.

Beach Trip takes a sudden, unexpected turn at the very end (which I sort of saw coming, but not in the way it played out), and leaves the reader with a lot to think about. But don’t worry, it has a HEA.

This book was published in the early 2000s and when I researched other books by this author, I was saddened to learn she passed away of a terminal illness in 2013. Her family, however, has completed her other unpublished manuscripts. Bravo!

If you like a solid, clean, yet complicated friendship novel, this one is lengthy, but worth the time it takes. Thanks for writing, Beach Trip. Rest in peace, Cathy Holton, I will be reading your other work. show less

"Writing wasn't about telling the truth at all; it was about rearranging truth, stretching it, and warping it to fit some safe and less-chaotic world of the writer's own making. And Mel has been doing that, in one way or another, all her life." (Page 215)

Cathy Holton's Beach Trip is Southern women's fiction with a twist. Mel, Annie, Sara, and Lola were college roommates and reunite in this novel two decades later. Like the heavy surf churned up by an offshore hurricane, their relationships are wrought with tension, love, jealousy, and forgiveness. Each chapter shifts between the past and the present--the mid-1980s to the early 2000s.

"'Twenty years from now,' Annie said, looking thin and melancholy. 'I don't want to be sitting around show more regretting the past. I don't want to be sitting around thinking about what I should have done.'

Mel gave her a heavy look. 'Twenty years from now, none of us will remember any of this.'" (Page 5)

Each woman embarks upon their own path and makes her way in the world. Sara, Annie, and Lola each marry and have children, while Mel marries and divorces a few men and concentrates on her career as a novelist. Mel is the independent, strong-willed feminist, while Sara is a follower and tough attorney fighting for the rights of children caught in the middle of parental divorce. Lola is laid back and pushed around by her husband, friends, and mother, and Annie is obsessive compulsive and striving for perfection. Each of these characters juxtaposes the other, and these characteristics weigh heavily on their relationships in college and beyond.

"'I'm so glad you're here,' Sara said, smiling at Annie. 'We need someone to keep us in line.'

Mel swung her arm around her head like she was twirling a lasso. 'Crack that whip,' she said.

'Crack it yourself,' Annie said. 'I'm on vacation.'" (Page 25)

Holton creates deep characters with simple flaws, placing them in situations of their own making. Readers just have to sit back and watch how they make their way out. The secrets revealed by these women as they reflect on the past are sometimes cliche, but the end of this novel will leave many readers agape. Overall, Beach Trip examines the complicated relationships of women with a flare of wit, humor, and sarcasm. show less

Beach Trip, Cathy Holton’s third novel, brings together four women in their forties for a reunion on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Although best friends at a small Southern college during the 1980’s, all four have taken different paths in their lives – and all four are hiding secrets. Sara is married with two children and struggles with the recent autism diagnosis of her son; Annie, also married with two children, has spent her whole life obsessively cleaning and making the world around her perfect while a decision from her past weighs heavily on her shoulders; Lola finds herself married to a controlling bully and has lost herself in prescription medications; and Mel, a twice divorced novelist covers her loneliness with humor, show more alcohol and meaningless sex.

Holton fully develops each character by weaving the present with the past and moving back and forth between each woman’s point of view. Throughout the novel, there is a sense of mystery and unspoken truths which creates the tension that drives the narrative. By gradually revealing each of her characters, Holton allows the reader time to get to know them. Despite her crassness, I found myself appreciating Mel the most – a character who perhaps is the most damaged, yet faces life head on with a spirit I could admire.

Beach Trip falls squarely in the genre of women’s fiction. Holton captures the essence of female friendship – the intimacy laced with conflict, the warmth and self-deprecating humor, and the comradery which develops when faced with crises. It is an enjoyable read with a surprising twist at the end. Holton’s prose is often funny. The reader gets the feeling that Holton cares deeply about each of her characters and their lives.

Beach Trip is recommended for readers who enjoy women’s fiction and are looking for a good summertime read. show less

A study of female friendship over the long haul, Beach Trip is a book filled with secrets, lies, love, and friendship above all. Cathy Holton does a great job setting the scene both during the beach trip and during the girl's college years. She creates four very unique characters with strengths and weakness all their own. The pacing of the novel is somewhat slow, especially in the middle of the book, where each woman continues to tell her story in a leisurely way. Each woman's secrets are somewhat predictable, but overall this was an entertaining read that makes you want to call your best friend and invite her over for margaritas.

This is definitely a beach read in every way except for the fact that it is over 400 pages long. It is the story of 4 women who were college roommates more than 20 years ago and reunite to spend a week together in one woman's beach home. Everyone of them has had their trial and tribulations in the intervening years--of course--but despite the fact that they are supposedly still close enough that they want to spend a week together, they are not in the least forthcoming in sharing these things with each other. There are too many references to current popular things (music in particular) which begins to make it feel like the writer is working to hard to prove a point. The problem with this is that some of the things she uses to try to set show more the story in the early 1980's are just not accurate. Just me--I know--I was in college in the late 1970's/early 1980's. There are some surprises toward the end; I'm just not sure that you'll care enough about the ladies to care about the surprises. show less

This story kept me guessing some.....enough to keep reading. The book flitted back and forth between two time periods and taking turns between four women's lives. I did enjoy those aspects. The women did have very interesting lives, past and present. Somehow, the story didn't just take off or penetrate a certain level of depth. Though there were a couple surprises, the book was mostly predictable. That isn't always a boring thing. In this case, I feel the author gave the reader a little less connection to the characters than I expected. I just wanted a little more.....something.
It felt like a somewhat forced "mid-life" crisis atmosphere. This was a good story overall and will try other books by this author.

I loved this book! I expected to like it but hadn't realized how much I would love it! Wow! Being able to relate age-wise to someone in college easier than a 40something, I loved all the flashbacks to college probably more than anything. I hadn't realized the book would literally take us back to when these 4 girls lived together, figured we would just hear about it in passing, so I was very happy we got to be there for some of the important times that shaped their lives in college.

For some reason I always prefer stories with more than one main character, I love stories of friends that come in and out of each others lives. All 4 of the characters were interesting but I like I liked Sara and Annie the most, probably because I saw a bit of show more myself in both of them, compared to Lola and Mel. I also saw myself being able to hang around someone like Sara or Annie more than Lola and Mel. I found myself fearing for Lola's safety, she kept wandering away the second her friends looked away. And Mel was definitely a button pusher, I think it would be hard to be around her. I did really like reading about her writing career and life in New York though.

There were a few twists and turns towards the end of the book but since in my mind I had already figured them out I was reading compulsively to see if in fact I was right in my predictions, and I was! It didn't hurt the story at all for me, it was actually nice being able to pick up on all the clues instead of having to think back later on and piece it all together. I really liked both of the plot twists, that's totally what I had wanted to happen! Actually at one point I set the book down and stuck my fist into the air and softly shouted YES!

All in all I definitely loved this book and can see myself going back to read it from time to time and reflect on this group of friends and their lives and families. show less