Silver Girl

Author: Elin Hilderbrand
Publisher: Reagen Arthur Books


Meredith Martin Delinn just lost everything: her friends, her homes, her social standing - because her husband Freddy cheated rich investors out of billions of dollars.


Desperate and facing homelessness, Meredith receives a call from her old best friend, Constance Flute. Connie's had recent worries of her own, and the two depart for a summer on Nantucket in an attempt to heal. But the island can't offer complete escape, and they're plagued by new and old troubles alike. When Connie's brother Toby - Meredith's high school boyfriend - arrives, Meredith must reconcile the differences between the life she is leading and the life she could have had.

Kari's thoughts:

I had to take a few days to think about this one.  I have come to the conclusion that this one just OK for me. I will be giving it 2 stars on Goodreads.  I'm not sure I can totally pinpoint why I didn't care for it.  I think it came down to the characters.  None of them appealed to me.  I didn't like Meredith at all.  I didn't feel badly for her situation one bit. Nobody can be that blind for 30 years. I wasn't even really convinced that she had changed that much in the end.  I also didn't care for Constance.  She could have made more of an effort to get back with her daughter, but instead she chose to wallow in self pity.  To me, Toby was the most honest of the 3 of them. But, he was almost felt like an after thought.  Like there was a need for a romance for Meredith, so let's bring back the old boyfriend.  I didn't buy it.

The other problem I had with the book was the pacing.  All of the inner reflection and remembering the past slowed down the book for me.  It was too long and probably could have been cut down a bit.    Personally, I don't think you will be missing anything if you skip this one.  I haven't read anything else by this author, but Autumn tells me her earlier works are good.  I'll have to pick one of those up!

Autumn's Thoughts:

I'm somewhat torn on this one.  I don't think I disliked it as much as Kari.  However, I don't think I liked it as much as The Island by Elin Hilderbrand.  One of the things that I will say that I disliked about this one was all the references to designers, clothing, shoes, furniture, etc.  I guess that's supposed to appeal to the chick-lit readers, but it started to annoy me.  I don't know designers, I don't know what it looks like, especially things that are going to appeal to 50 year old billionaire women.

Overall, I think this book was supposed to be sort of like taking a look at all these "Bernie Madoff" type scandals from the wife's point of view.  Sometimes the family are just innocent bystanders.   I didn't totally hate Meredith, but I thought she was kinda being a baby at times.  There was such harping on how incredibly intelligent she was, but I felt like she was kind of lazy.  She could have done more to make something of herself, by herself.   I wanted to like Connie, but she started to aggravate me too.  If she wanted her daughter back, I would think that after two years you would get up off your ass and go visit her and apologize in person.   I really hope I'm raising my daughters to be tougher, more self-sufficient women than these two.

What I did like, and what I like about other works from Elin Hildebrand are all her descriptions of Nantucket and what a lovely place it is.  It always makes me want go buy a house on an island.

I also want to mention that we both listened to the audiobook.  I don't think either of us were thrilled with the narrators.  They weren't completely awful to the point you couldn't listen to it, but they weren't awesomely fantastic either.  However, I do want to thank Hachette Audio for providing the copy I listened to.