I had seen some nice reviews of "Up at Butternut Lake" and thought it would make a good end-of -summer read after a few heavier books I've read lately. I enjoy some chick-lit and this looked appealing. Sadly it did not meet my expectations. I found it slow as molasses with lots of repeated descriptions of how appealing, sexy, perky, etc. the main characters are. There is only one real plot twist, involving Jax, a secondary character. And even this plot twist is dropped as soon as possible. There is absolutely no tension about whether Allie and Walker will finally get together. Fifty pages could easily have been cut from this book. It has been compared to works by Kristin Hannah and Susan Wiggs, neither of whom I've read. I think that I hoped it would be a bit quirkier, like Lorna Landvik's books set in Minnesota. I need more than just pleasant writing and mild sex scenes. Allie Becket has been widowed for two years. Seeking a place where well-meaning friends have so much advice for her and so many opinions about how it is time for her to move on with her life, Allie takes her 5 year old son to Butternut Lake. It is the place where she and her family went for the summer when she was a teenager and it holds many good memories. Once there, she is both delighted and dismayed that the small town remains much the same as she remembered it. Delighted because it is so familiar and restful, but dismayed because it is a small town where everyone knows the business of everyone else. The comfort is that her old friend from her teen years, Jax, is surprisingly still a resident of the town and is the happily married mother of three girls with another on the way.A disturbing factor is that a new and rather luxurious cabin has been built near her own quiet cabin and is owned and lived in by Walker Ford, a successful manager of several boat yards. He is still nursing his own failure at a short marriage.This was a paint by numbers story that has done many times over. Wounded female returns to a familiar place to seek solace and new direction. Available, handsome man notices wounded female and makes a play for her. Wounded female rejects him. Available, handsome man persists. Wounded female gives up and falls for available, handsome man. Then comes a misunderstanding and wounded female retreats with harsh words even though it hurts. Available, handsome man retreats. Friends intervene on behalf of the two. Wounded female and available, handsome man pledge their love and honesty to each other.It was an ok read, because but for the names of the characters and the name of the place, this could be any other book about starting over. With the exception of a secret that Jax has, there are no surprises and even that didn't wow me. The characters were all well-developed, but again, their names could have been changed and inserted into any other similiar book. It was a quick read, easy to pick up where I had left off and easy enough to put down.
What do You think about Up At Butternut Lake (2014)?
Just a sappy love story. Didn't need to finish it-I know how it ends.
—red
Cute book. Not as fast a read as I had hoped.
—tashaab
