Laura Dave

Two women at the opposite ends of marriage are trying to answer the same question: When should you fight to save a relationship and when should you begin to let go? The Divorce Party brings us two immensely appealing women: Gwyn, at the end of her marriage, and her future daughter-in-law, Maggie, at the beginning. Though they make very different choices, both women ultimately discover how to create the lives that they most want to lead.

The Divorce Party

Sarah Sammis

The Divorce Party has a strong sense of place. It starts with the 1938 hurricane that destroyed most of Montauk Island (off the coast of Long Island). It's the ferocity of the storm that cements their choice to marry. Together they vow that the house will see everything.

Sixty-nine years later the love has gone from the home. Instead of a thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, Gwynn Huntington is planning a divorce party. She and her husband have grown apart as he finds a new religion. Gwynn though knows it's more than just religion and the party is her way of getting a sweet revenge on her husband.

Meanwhile Maggie is coming to terms with learning her fiancé is obscenely wealthy when she's been struggling to make ends meet all her life. She's not sure if their relationship can work but she still decides to go along with Nate to the divorce party.

I loved the setting and the first chapter. I had high hopes for the rest of the novel but Maggie's on-going insecurities quickly became tedius. Maggie wasn't a strong enough character to carry her half of the novel. Meanwhile, Gwynn's constant anger isn't explained until the big reveal near the end. I would have preferred to know earlier the reason behind Gwynn's actions. As she's written she's just a constantly angry and bitter person and that makes her boring and unsympathetic (until the very end).

The strengths of the novel remain in the descriptions of the locations and the understanding of how the place has changed (or not) during the last seven decades. The book could have been something special with more attention to characterization and more foreshadowing.

Heather Margaret

Hosting a divorce party on what would have been their thirty-fifth anniversary, amicably separated spouses Gwyn and Thomas Huntington unexpectedly toast their son's engagement to a young woman who inadvertently discovers unsettling secrets about the man she is to marry.

The Divorce Party

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