She's Up to No Good

You're Gonna Miss This. When I think about this book and everything that happens in it, the thing that keeps coming to my mind is the old Trace Adkins song “You're Gonna Miss This”. You've got all kinds of things going on here - a 3os-ish woman who has just been dumped by her husband for a younger woman and then spends the next six months isolated in her parents' home, the feisty octogenarian grandmother with lifelong secrets of her own, and a charming small beach town where everyone knows everything and all will be revealed. While the song is all about children growing up too quickly, it is equally applicable to grandparents passing too quickly, and both themes are used superbly here. A very fun book with a lot of heart and a few gut punches, this book has pretty much everything anyone could want in a women's fiction novel bordering on the romance. Very much recommended.

this was a delightful read. the basic plot of the novel is that the protagonist, jenna, goes on a trip to her grandmother's, evelyn's, hometown of hereford, massachusetts.

she's up to no good is told in two perspectives: the first by jenna in the present day, whose husband has just left her for another woman & is in the process of getting her life together. she goes on the trip with evelyn for a change of scenery (she had just moved back into her parent's house after the separation) and to accompany her grandmother. here, jenna finds out a lot about her grandmother's past – especially the decisions made that determined the current course of events. the second perspective is evelyn's, starting in 1950's when she meets her forbidden love, tony.

the highlight of the book by far was evelyn's character. in both perspectives i enjoyed her smartass comments but also the intense love she had for her family. she has dealt with much grief & sacrifice, about which she can be annoyingly cryptic about. she is just overall a little heathen and it's very fun to read.

this being said, i definitely enjoyed evelyn's storyline more than jenna's. jenna came off very childlike to me, which could be due to the rut she was in. if this book was only told in jenna's POV, i don't i think i would've enjoyed the book as much as i did. it felt like her POV existed mostly to show the outcome of the decisions made in evelyn's POV. she and her love interest have a bit of insta-love going on, but i think they developed a lot of chemistry towards the end of the book.