Look at this cover, I love it!

The little Alice, the two different fonts, the girl in the mirror, seriously how can you NOT choose a book for it’s cover when it looks like this one!

Even more exciting than the cover (which is much better in person without my poor photography skills messing with it), the book was great! As I’m sure you have already guessed it is a historical fiction about the real Alice from Alice in Wonderland.

I was hooked when the first chapter started with this:

“Off with their-legs. That was the curious notion I had as a child.

That certain people-queens, generally-lost their heads was understood to be a historical fact.

But in my world, legs were missing with alarming regularity as well. The men in their long academic robes, the women in their voluminous skiers; everyone skimming, floating, like puffs of cotton in the air – that is the first, and most vivid memory of my childhood.”- Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

In case a great cover and awesome writing isn’t quite enough to sway you the author includes historical facts she worked from in the back. I love that!

Would I recommend it? Definitely!

They say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover,  I say that’s where the title is and you have to start somewhere.

When I read a book I hate reading the dust flap, the reviews, the summary’s, anything that tells me what is going to happen. If I do read one of those I always have that info lurking in the back of my mind while I’m reading. For instance had I read the whole dust flap of this book I would have read something like this:

“Lexi Laney and Clare Hart grew up together swimming in the surf, riding remote bike trails, and having wondrous adventures across picturesque Nantucket. And when it was time to share intimate secrets and let their girlish imaginations run free, they escaped to their magical private hideaway: Moon Shell Beach.

But nothing stays the same. With the complicated pressures of adulthood, their intense bond is frayed, hurtful words are exchanged, and Lexi flees Nantucket to a life of luxury while Clare stays behind.

Ten years later, a newly divorced Lexi returns to make amends with those she left in her wake. Living at home with her father and dating a gorgeous carpenter, Clare still simmers with resentment toward her glamorous friend. And when Lexi opens an upscale clothing boutique next door to Clare’s chocolate shop, their paths are fated to cross.

Their emotional reunion is beset with major challenges: Lexi’s return sets off a series of startling events that fracture the status quo and set the town gossips’ tongues wagging. And as Clare’s life takes an abrupt detour, Lexi wonders if the happiness and peace they once knew on Moon Shell Beach will, in the end, prove to be as fleeting as time and the tide. In the turbulent adult world, awash in failed loves and romantic disappointment, can childhood dreams still come true?

Irresistible reading, Moon Shell Beach explores the evolution of a tumultuous lifelong friendship, the power of forgiveness, and the rewards of believing in miracles.” (-product discription from the hardcover copy)

Then I start a book waiting, waiting for Lexi to leave, knowing she’ll come back, expecting loves to fail, waiting for Clare’s abrupt detour and having no surprise when Lexi opens up her clothing store. I hate reading like that. I like to let the book unfold as I go with minimum information before hand, and no idea what is going to happen next. I firmly belive that’s the way books are meant to be read. It is one of the reasons you may have noticed a minimum of plot details on this site, if you want to spoil the surprise of your next  book feel free to check out Amazon and their plethora of reviews and editorials. Here you will find general impressions, writing style and hopefully just enough of the content to know if it might be something you’d like to pick up. Of course reading books this way I have run into some doozys.

Speaking of doozys, it wouldn’t matter if anyone told you what was going to happen in this book it is, predictable, predictable, predictable. Made all the more irritating by the fact that the author has periods of really great writing that would then dissolve into cheesy predictable mush. Did I mention it’s predictability?  Before you go off thinking I’m all difficult with my non-predictability needs let me also say this. There are cheesy books I love, there are predictable books I love, but there’s got to be a little something extra in those books, and this one was didn’t have it.

Would I recommend it? No.   As much as I hate being wrong I must concede that sometimes people are right and you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover…but only sometimes!