The Book:
The Shore by Katie Runde
Published May 24, 2022 by Scribner
Date read: September 4, 2022
The Characters:
Brian and Margot Dunne
Their children, Evy and Liz
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
The Plot (from Goodreads):
Brian and Margot Dunne live year-round in Seaside, just steps away from the bustling boardwalk, with their daughters Liz and Evy. The Dunnes run a real estate company, making their living by quickly turning over rental houses for tourists. But the family’s future becomes even more precarious when Brian develops a brain tumor, transforming into a bizarre, erratic version of himself. Amidst the chaos and new caretaking responsibilities, Liz still seeks out summer adventure and flirting with a guy she should know better than to pursue. Her younger sister Evy works in a candy shop, falls in love with her friend Olivia, and secretly adopts the persona of a middle-aged mom in an online support group, where she discovers her own mother’s most vulnerable confessions. Meanwhile, Margot faces an impossible choice driven by grief, impulse, and the ways that small-town life in Seaside has shaped her. Falling apart is not an option, but she can always pack up and leave the beach behind.
The Shore is a powerful, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting novel infused with humor about young women finding sisterhood, friendship, and love in a time of crisis. This big-hearted family saga examines the grit and hustle of running a small business in a tourist town, the ways we connect with strangers when our families can’t give us everything we need, and the comfort to be found in embracing the pleasures of youth while coping with unimaginable loss.
The Review:
I was absolutely not prepared for how sad this book was! It hit me right in the emotions and I sobbed over every scene about Brian, past and present. I really felt for all three of the main characters, and the chapter from Brian’s POV at the end completely broke me.
THE SHORE is extremely character-driven, which isn’t normally my favorite, but it was very well done in this case. I especially loved the epistolary chapters of emails between Brian and Margot when they first starting dating, and Evy and Liv’s reactions to reading those letters.
I wouldn’t call this a beach read (and it’s certainly not lighthearted), but there is so much summertime nostalgia here that it begs to be read on vacation. I used to visit Wildwood, NJ every summer in college for an ultimate frisbee tournament, so I felt like I could perfectly picture the boardwalk and the beaches described in The Shore.
This was a beautiful and extremely emotional debut, and I can’t wait to read more by this author.
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