I bought this because it was number two in the Kindle rankings, and because it kept popping up in my recommended list. It's a feel-good beach read thing, I'd say, and to be honest it was a bit too feel good twee for me. It did exactly what it said on the tin. It was well-written, it was full of nice characters, it had a slightly damaged, slightly underdog narrator. It had lovely scenery, it had a nice wee village, and best friends, and bad boyfriends, and lots of cake eating and bonding went on. Nothing wrong with that, but as I've said, all a bit bland for me. I can see why it's so popular though, I expect it does leave an 'all's right with the world' taste in the right mouths. For me, just too much looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses. This book is certainly no feat of literary genius, but then it's not pretending to be.It's easy to read and even though Evie - black sheep, newly appointed cafe owner and main character - can be annoyingly naive and even judgemental at times (she, or should I say the author, seems to have a problem with obese people, which I found offensive. Practically all the 'bad' characters are overweight and sweat excessively or have shelves for bosoms), I found, often begrudgingly, that I liked her.Despite these minor flaws, the book kept me reading and it really did paint a lovely picture of a Cornish beach and the villagers who live there, so much so that I was able to overlook the predictable and extremely saccharine ending and even found myself wiping a (very) little tear from my eye...You can tell the author also writes for a younger audience (under a different name) because the prose does sometimes stray into Enid Blyton territory, something that I found made any sexual scenes sound a bit strange and uncomfortable (talk of "dried fluids" in particular made me ick out loud), but if nothing else, I should thank Lucy Diamond for a simple, warm novel with a happy ending that allowed me to ease myself back into reading after a fairly despicable lull. This was the first novel I've completed reading in so long I'm embarrassed to disclose the details. Check please!
What do You think about Beach Cafe (2011)?
good,enjoyable fun to read.made you feel good inside,the way you would like to feel all the time
—claudiade4
