I do love a holiday/travel story, so I was excited to get to this. Unfortunately, this was not my cup of tea despite it being a group of older women friends who decide to take a year and live in Greece together.

I am not afraid of books with unlikeable characters, but this was a bit more than I wanted. The women are selfish, racist, judgemental, and generally unpleasant to each other, their families, and others they meet. There were so many cringing portions that made me sit straight up when I read them. I suspect that she felt as if she was writing a take down of these types of women, but it wasn't a fun reading experience. A specific example of the things that made me shudder a NO was the introduction of a maid that they fought about bringing along. Gladys was the maid from Soweto and the rest worried about how others on the Greek Island would react to her. Just jaw-droppingly bad. Then a swarm of other characters descends on the island and it became a farcical set of events from there on out.

Overall, I found the plotting, pacing, and writing to be inconsistent. The unchecked/unexamined racism was beyond the pale and this book was a complete miss for me.

I love books with a true cast of characters. This book had that a created a life and environment that made me feel like I was living in Greece with Dania, Bess and Ruth.

What I was surprised to find was that these three little old ladies were so unlikeable and kind of just bad people.
Still, the ideal of Greece for a year isn't SO terrible.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2035495862

All opinions are my own!

This book is hard to pin down for judgment. My true rating would be a 3.5 out of 5 because some things worked really well and others did not, but I suspect it's partially my fault and not that of the book. The premise of this book hooked me from the start: a group of older women leave their assorted children and grandchildren escape to Greece for a year, setting up strict boundaries with each other and their families which are immediately challenged or all-out crumble. Drama ensues. This story really made me consider if there is anyone I could live with in Greece for a year, and I'm fairly certain the answer is no. In the end, this was a valuable perspective for me to read and I'm not sure if my failure to connect with the characters is their fault because we don't have a lot in common.
What I really enjoyed was how Freed crafted the family relationships. Ruth, the narrator, has a dysfunctional relationship with her daughter and can never seem to avoid conflict with her, not that either of them necessarily want to avoid it. Dania likes her daughter but often feels - and is - taken advantage of by her. Bess has never settled down and had a string of lovers. Her children are strong personalities, though completely opposite, and are quite judgmental of her choices. All three women make excellent observations about what is expected of grandmothers which had never occurred to me, a childless millennial, and I think a book from their perspectives is important.
What did not work for me was how little the motivations of the core three were fleshed out. Other than why they fled to Greece, I couldn't get a good grasp on why they made these choices. As old and new lovers come in and out of the story, I never got a sense of what Ruth and Bess were feeling or why they were allowing them to stay, encouraging them, tolerating them or dismissing them. As Dania deals with an increasingly erratic therapy patient stalking her, everyone treated it breezily until they didn't and I was never clear on what Dania was thinking, further hindered by the fact that she was the only character with no first-person voice throughout the book (Bess writes a couple of entries for Ruth's column about their adventures).
Ruth's musings become increasingly annoyed and I kept wondering whose idea was this? Why did they think it would work? It became clear to me early on that they were going to drive each other crazy, how could they not see this? Ruth seems to come to this not-so-startling realization almost halfway through the book when she says, "As it was, we'd all been so full of hope--stupid, thoughtless hope--so pleased with ourselves for our escape that we hadn't considered anything like this." By the end, I was thoroughly sick of all of them, which may have been intentional because that's how they all felt about each other after the year in Greece.
Overall, Freed's writing is strong and I want to pick up more of her work, but the characters, while interesting, were not fully realized.

Ruth, Dania and Bess have reached the point in their lives when they feel they can finally take time for themselves, but when their grown children decide that grandma is a free babysitter, they decide something drastic is called for. They decide to spend a year in Greece, doing whatever they want, not worrying what other people think. At first it’s picture perfect, then an affair with a married man with an angry wife, an ex boyfriend and a crazy stalker turn their paradise into anything but. Then, just when things can’t possibly get worse, the children and grandchildren they’ve traveled thousands of miles to avoid, show up on their doorstep. With a gorgeous Greek backdrop, a trio of wacky and wonderful women and a hilarious (and sometimes all too real) storyline, this is a wonderful read for empty nesters who like having their nest back