Playdate: By Thelma Adams

PLAYDATE

SUMMARY

Inside their picture-perfect homes, the residents of this quiet California suburb are not at all what they seem.

Lance is a former weatherman, now a buff yogi, stay-athome dad, and manager of his daughter’s Girl Scout troop’s cookie distribution. Belle is his precocious and quick-witted daughter. Darlene is a classic Type A work-a-holic, she has little time or patience for the needs of her husband and daughter

And just down the street are Alec and Wren. Alec, a womanizing businessman, is also the financial backer—and sometimes more—behind Darlene’s burgeoning empire. Meanwhile, Wren is a doting mother and talented yogi, ready to lay down the mat for a quick session with Lance.

As looming Santa Ana winds threaten to turn brushfires into catastrophe; Playdate proves that relationships are complicated and the bonds between families, spouses and children are never quite what they seem. What happens next door, beyond the hedges, in the romper room and executive office—it’s all as combustible as a quick brushfire on a windy day.

REVIEW

Playdate is not a good book.

To be fair part of the reason I didn’t like this book was the fact that I had a different expectation for the book than it ended up being about. I was expecting a fun sarcastic romp, like Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You Now (which is fantastic if you haven’t read it.) But what I got was a book filled with over-sexed un-relatable characters, and a plot line that would make even the authors mother fall asleep.

As I mentioned the characters weren’t just over sexed maniacs, they were poorly written and just plain hard to connect with. I really feel in this kind of book the characters are the most important aspect, but in Playdate, Adam’s just plain falls down on the job of creating engaging relatable characters. Because of this the book never gets off the ground, and even if it had a breathtaking captivating plot (which it didn’t) than it wouldn’t have made up for it’s lack of characters.

All in all while there were some funny lines and the back of the book reads like it could be good, I was heavily disappointed with Playdate. It was sluggish, predictable, and hard to keep holding (the opposite of hard to put down.) If you have to pick a book to read for fun, don’t make the mistake in reading this one.

RATING

3 out of 10

INFO

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books

Published: January 18, 2011

Price: $23.99