Book Review: “The Vacationers” by Emma Straub

• Genre: Contemporary Fiction
• Length: 292 pages/
• Published: 2014
• My rating: 5/5
• Goodreads rating: 4/5

Audio:

• Narrator: Kristen Seigh
• Length: 6.5 hours

Description: The Post family’s 2-week trip to the island of Mallorca with close friends is not the blissful escape they initially hoped for as their private secrets, humiliations, and trials soon bubble up to the surface.

Review:

This quick, enjoyable story was filled with familial strife that reminds us all that no family is perfect, although it is worth fighting for. The characters are all hugely flawed, but this doesn’t make me care for them any less–on the contrary, I thought it made the story more honest than it would have been if Straub had leaned in favor of one character or another. Besides being an easy and refreshing read, I also found that, from the perspective of a writer, it was a great study in point of view. Telling a story from the perspective of 7 different people has potential for disaster written all over it, and while I had some momentary confusions, I thought that the storytelling was really smooth overall.

I’m glad I chose to listen this book on audio, because that seems like the ideal medium for a story like this, one with very little rise and fall of the plot. I want to befriend Kristen Seigh in real life just to hear her ernest, casual voice everywhere I go, although I’m sure part of the effect was Straub’s flowing details and fluid writing style. The story itself was paced just right so that the lack of action didn’t get boring. Overall, I found it to be a refreshing change of pace, almost a vacation in itself from the rest of my bookshelf.