The Year of Pleasures

I have loved every Elizabeth Berg I've read, but I cannot say that about this one. I liked it. I enjoyed it. I'm glad I read it. But I didn't love it. Maybe it's because the storyline is different from anything I've lived. But somehow even the little details that I usually love about her novels were somehow contrived in this one. I'm not sure why. I can't quite put my finger on it.

That said, I did still like and enjoy the book. After a strong and happy marriage, albeit a bit insular, Betta Nolan follows the dream she'd shared with her husband before he died and moves to a new small town to start fresh. (And picky me, I admit to being bothered by the fact that the back of the book says her name is Bette but in the book it's actually Betta.) She impulsively buys a home in a small town and sells her Boston home where she lived for years with her husband. They'd never had children and kept to themselves pretty much. Now she's out on her own, ready to make a change from her previous life as an author of children's books, but still grieving for her husband. She reaches out to some old college roommates and everything ends up happily ever after.

It's a nice story. It's just a bit sad even at the "happy ever after" to me. She and her husband apparently had no good friends as a couple and she'd cut herself off from her college friends. There's no family, no in-laws, no parents, and no friends from her married life that she feels any need to stay in touch with in her new widowed life. Somehow her married life seems to have been lived in a vacuum and that seems sad.

The writing is good, the details interesting... I guess I just don't really like the main character and I can't quite get past that. Yet, I'm still glad I read it.