I found this book to be very boring. Not only is there just not much plot and too many years covered, but the prologue of setting up the story to be Maren ready to finally tell Skye something, this was forgettable and did a poor job of creating any tension. We know early on that Annie is dead and that she was an alcoholic and that Charlie is also dead, it's just the circumstances surrounding some of these facts that's unknown. After Skye hears about how Charlie died and how young Annie reacted, she says something like 'my mom never really talked about him and treated it as no big deal, so I didn't think it was'. So we the reader also thought it was no big deal and therefore there was no tension here. It wasn't exactly a juicy secret! We see how Skye had a childhood marked with her feeling the need to lie, to adapt to constant change, to be the one who was the responsible party-- there was obvious trauma that Skye went through and throughout it all still loved her mom and had good times too. But the adversity and trauma is still there, so I was pretty fucking annoyed at Maren telling Skye at the end 'you said your life was chaos, but your mom was a good person and your life wasn't all bad' and then Skye was basically like 'yeah I guess I should be grateful and positive about my childhood!' BULL I felt that there was no real tension or connection or charge between Skye and her love interest (I think his name was Ben? Everyone had generic-ass boring names.) I also really didn't see much between Maren and Oliver once they were established, and I agree with his comment that she never really needed him. The whole problem with Haven Point is how both Maren and Skye feel that they don't fit in there, and both can acknowledge that there are underlying elements that aren't great: the wealth, the snobbery and exclusion, the homogeneity Etc. Maren gets to see the good bits of this community after Charlie's death as the people rally around the family, plus she had Georgie and Maude around. Skye doesn't really see much of the community, other than maybe seeing how people come together somewhat after the huge storm? This was not really on page. But ultimately the family that all of the Haven Point people are against, the Donnelly family-- the dad Finn tries to seduce Maren, and then the son Patrick is anti-war and hurt Annie, and the grandson B/Ryan is a drug dealer!! So what exactly is the message here?? Not exactly acceptance! BULL A couple small miscellaneous items: is Haven point only a summer location? It seemed like Pauline and then the older Maren lived there full time, but younger Maren was only there in the summer? The timing was weird. Skye only went there in the summers? Annie only ever fell off the wagon during the summer? Maren's eldest child Billy was barely in the book, and many of the secondary characters were complete cardboard cutouts. There were a lot of characters throughout the book, but this did not give it a charming small town feeling. Harriet being nasty to Maren was pointless and weirdly quickly resolved. Skye's father was brought up multiple times but then never became an issue even though the implication was there? Some reviewers say that this was nicely written but overall boring, or fell a bit flat. I agree with other reviews that indicate that most secondary characters lacked depth and that there was not an emotional connection with this story, and I felt detached throughout. One reviewer points out how many times women and girls are pitted against each other for no good reason. While I hadn't noticed that myself, I definitely see that now! After reading a number of five star reviews, I feel that most of them have no real substance and are simply summaries, so that's a little weird.