"Oh poor us! We are just so fabulously wealthy and have so many problems! We just have to spend the summer on an island doing nothing but wallowing in our sorrow! And even though we aren't, like, working or anything we are still going to hire someone to watch the kids! And it's a boy, isn't that so funny? Hahahaha a guy watching kids, just imagine that! And we will drag him into all our rich people problems and ruin his happy summer too!"Ugh. Just awful.

Three women and two children step off a plane in Nantucket. There's Vicki, mom to the small two boys, who has recently learned that she has lung cancer. There's her sister, Brenda, an academic reeling from losing her job after having an affair with one of her students. And then there's Vicki's friend, Melanie. After many IVF treatments, Melanie is finally pregnant; but, she's also found out husband, Peter, is having an affair with a colleague. They've come to Nantucket to try to heal Vicki--who

It is about these three ladies in their 30’s that go to Nantucket to get away from their life issues from CT and NY. One character is named Brenda who is a promiscuous type character but goes after much younger men than her, at least that is what it seems. She ends up losing her job as a professor at a well-known college because she was caught having sexual relations with her student. Meanwhile, as she is having an argument with some of the staff that is in her English program, she accidentally

I'd like to begin by stating that once I started this book, I truly did not want to put it down. The lives of Brenda, Vicki, Melanie, and Josh are so captivating and genuine, making it hard not to become invested. The setting is summer on Nantucket, and Hilderbrand's artful use of descriptive language truly made me feel as if I was there, providing yet another reason for why I couldn't put this novel down.While there is a certain, underlying thread of sadness that runs through the story, there a...

BAREFOOT ~ A beach house, two sisters, and a girlfriend...Sounds heavenly--relaxing, even with a couple kids in tow…Now, I can handle a bit of vomit and lost luggage, but Hilderbrand mercilessly tugs at all of my feminine heartstrings; marriage, motherhood, sisterhood, and friendship…oh, and that pesky fear-of-death thing.Meet the Girls: Melanie deals with infertility overshadowed by infidelity, and then further complicated with pregnancy — “POW!”Brenda’s promising academic career hangs in jeopa...

Looking for something light and summery, I took the front cover and read the back and thought it'd be perfect for a weekend at the lake. What the back of the book doesn't tell you is that from the very first chapter, the 3 main characters are annoying and never get any better.There is a martyr sister with lung cancer, a selfish professor sister and a poor-miserable-me friend who escapes because her husband cheated on her then ends up cheating on him. The children are brats, the husbands alternat...

On a summer vacation in Nantucket, three women arrive at the local airport- two sisters and one friend-- They're all trying to escape from their real life problems. Melanie, after several failed attempted to conceive, discovers she is pregnant. Right after her husband tells her he is cheating on her with his co-worker.Brenda , a prominent professor, has a scandalous affair with an older student that got her fired from her job Vickie, mother to two small boys, has been diagnosed with lung cancer....

Alright, if you would delete all pages from about 30% to 75% this book might have gotten 4 stars. First off, no one can identify with these characters. The women are all totally pessimistic and broken, the children are your typical American kids: spoiled brats and all the men have macho-man issues (with the exception of John Walsh, but we don't get to know him well enough). I understand that sometimes life gets you down and occasionally you might feel like there's nothing left except despair, bu...

Don’t do it. I bought this book after returning from the beach in Martha’s Vineyard this past summer. I thought it was about girlfriends at the beach…What I didn’t know was that none of the female characters were likable. I think this is an important hook for any book – likable characters…instead we are presented with the worst of feminine traits – martyr, hysteria, anxiety, selfish…Ughh. Honestly I couldn’t get over the beginning when they head to the beach and all hell breaks lose – a child go...

I'd give it a half a star if that was possible. In fact, I'm contemplating taking the one star away but I figured I had to give it something. This book disappointed me. (**WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD**) First, the book was all over the place. One minute I'm following Viki, then Brenda, then Melanie, and then Josh... oh and then there are flash backs too, so it just gets confusing most of the time. Second, it didn't end at all the way I wanted it to and that upset me. I thought the story of everyone

It's summer, and even lovers of YA books need a beach read sometimes! I picked this up at my local public library because the cover was about worn out--proof it has been loved!Three women arrive on Nantucket for the summer. Vicki needs to get away from home because she has lung cancer and needs to begin chemotherapy. She doesn't know how to handle it--but at least her two boys can play at the beach if she's at the family cabin. Brenda is running away--she was just fired as a university professor...

Barefoot is a book that was recommended to me (Thanks Lani) because I really enjoyed The Castaways by this author and I wanted to read more of her books. I actually started out not liking any of the characters, and surprisingly by the middle to end, I ended up loving them all! Each character had their own reason for being who they were, and I was endeared to each of them. However, it wasn't until halfway through the book that I became involved enough with the characters that it became a page tur...

This book was horrible. One star is really too many. This was my first Elin Hilderbrand novel and frankly, I will never read another one. Can someone please tell me why this book was a national bestseller? It read like a soap opera would if it were a novel. The characters were one dimensional, at best. I kept waiting for a climax to the book and there never was one. These women supposedly were to experience this summer that would change their lives, but they never changed. Vicki beat cancer, Mel...

This is the story of three women and the trials that life brings to them. It is a bittersweet novel depicting the importance of family and friends when life hits a rough patch. It also demonstrates that one never knows where help might come from. This was a well written fluff novel. It dragged slowly by in certain parts. I felt the end wrapped up too nicely and too neatly for all of the characters. It would be great if life worked in such wonderful ways, but alas I found the ending unrealistic.

***Spoilers included***There are many issues with this book, one of the least severe being that no one in the novel titled Barefoot actually goes barefoot aside from perhaps the kids! Why were there continuous inclusions of people stuffing sand in each others’ shoes (my worst nightmare) when Hilderbrand desired the title to be the opposite? Maybe the publisher had her change it. I read in her Acknowledgement that this book marks a new beginning for Hilderbrand, which I guess means she had kids.

Let me start by saying I was expecting this to be a throw-away book. Something I could start, put down if something else caught my attention, and/or never pick back up (and never regret missing out on if I didn't return to it). I think that impression was the fault of the editors, or whoever put the front cover together. With the tagline, "Three women. Three Secrets. One long, hot summer." and a quote reading, "Summer reading fun. ... Twenty pages in, you'll be ready to drop everything and head

Life was too short to fritter away in a constant state of yearning, aching, wanting. Waiting for something to happen. Let me just say it upfront. Barefoot will more than likely not be my favorite of Elin Hilderbrand's writing. Narrated by four different characters- sisters Vicki and Brenda, friend Melanie, and summer babysitter Josh, these characters arrive in Sconset with their summer beach bags and their emotional baggage. This is coming from a place of love and respect for the author, but