I loved "Vintage" and gave it fours stars when I read it back in 2014 and kept my eye out to see when Susan Gloss would publish another book. Unfortunately, I found this follow-up to "Vintage" to be disappointing. This book doesn't do a good job of linking all of the stories to each other. Artists living together in a "colony" didn't help link things since they were all going through so many things and felt like roommates that passed in the night. It didn't help that one of the POVs we get is from a character who has passed away. I just felt jumbled the entire time I read this and ended up disliking most of the characters too. 

 

"The Curiosities" follows Nell Parker who after dealing with losing her baby in the second trimester, throws herself into fertility treatments leaving her and her husband (without his knowledge) deeply in debt. Nell finds a job hoping that she can start chipping away at their debt. She ends up getting a job as a director of a new artist's retreat. For readers who read "Vintage" we know that the character that did this was Betsy. Nell ends up focusing on her new artists that are staying at the mansion turned colony. The other characters are Paige (young and self absorbed), Annie (older and self absorbed) and Odin (harboring romantic feelings towards Nell). 

 

Nell suffered a devastating loss and I thought the one scene we get to show her and her husband holding their daughter as she dies was heartbreaking. If we had gotten more of that maybe I would have liked Nell more. She lies to her husband and seems to be entertaining thoughts about Odin (that name you guys). Her husband Josh felt more present to me as a character and I wish we had gotten some POVs with him as well.

 

Annie was a jerk. I hated her whole story-line. Her studying addiction series sounded pretentious as hell. The fallout from it seemed like an after thought to other characters though. How no one went off on her is baffling.

Paige was boring. She meets a guy she likes him and then runs away from it. Ho-hum.

Odin was just there. I found myself skimming his chapters. 

The writing wasn't as engaging as it was in Vintage. Gloss does the same thing here she did with calling out who is "speaking" by chapter and including some information on art while doing that. In "Vintage" she included description of clothes, hats, etc. and when they were first bought and sold. The flow was awful in this one. Probably because I found myself only really caring about Betsy's POV chapters. I wish that Gloss had included more from the characters she introduced us to in Vintage. We only see a brief scene that includes Violet. 

 

The setting of Madison doesn't get a lot of play in this one unfortunately. We have Paige going to college and there's a little bit here and there. However, most of the book takes place in Betsy's old mansion now turned colony. We hear a lot about how beautiful it is and the art work, but I couldn't picture it very well which was a shame. 

The ending leaves things on a slightly hopeful note for Nell. I just didn't much care by the time the end came about what becomes of the other characters. 

 

I tend to only talk about price when I am disappointed in a book and this costing $14.99 was too much. Especially for a follow-up. The last book was $11.99 and I recall thinking that was too high. Considering how lackluster this was I am going to just pass on any more books from Gloss unless I can borrow from the library. 

A charming book with well-developed characters and pacing. I enjoyed it- the writer made me want to visit the store and get to know the ladies.

 

Vintage, the debut novel by Susan Gloss, is a predictable, feel good story about women. Set in a vintage clothing store in Madison, Wisconsin, the book is about finding friendship and new beginnings. The theme of second chances repeats throughout the book in the resale of vintage clothing and in the stories of the women. The book proceeds predictably to a predictable ending. The book makes for an easy, light vacation read.

 

Read my complete review at: http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2014/11/vintage.html

 

I am starting to really like the "vintage" genre romance and chick-lit novels that are coming out lately. I think it's because most of the clothes, appliances, dishes, harkens back to an earlier time and people like imaging themselves as debutantes at a ball.

This novel focuses on three women who come into contact due to a vintage store, Hourglass Vintage, that is located in Madison, Wisconsin. These women are Violet, April, and Amithi.

Violet owns Hourglass Vintage, but due to an unexpected development by the owner of her building may found herself without a home or store in a few short months. April is 18 years old, pregnant, and alone. Dealing with the death of her mother a few months earlier and her fiancee breaking off her wedding, she interns at Violet's store. Amithi comes into Violet's store trying her best to give away clothes that she feels are tainted by her husband's betrayal.

I loved all three of these women as characters. However, Amithi's storyline really did not flow with the rest of the story lines in this novel. I think her storyline would have made a great standalone novel or a sequel to Vintage: A Novel. April and Violet's story lines are more closely entwined since they both are working at the store and becoming closer to each other. Amithi would drop in here and there but was not really involved with them at all. A side character, in this novel, Lane, was more interesting to me and actually would have fit in nicely with Violet and April's storyline. I found myself more interested in Lane since she seemed to have such a surreal life as an actress that had her giving that up to be a wife and mother.

I can't wait to see what Susan Gloss writes next.

I've always loved books where people’s lives intersect and they all become happier as a result. This is one of those stories. At the beginning, I thought I might be getting tired of that story. I thought this particular story might feel clichéd and exactly like all the others. However, the more I read, the more I was convinced this was something special. The writing did remind me of The Wedding Bees or Lost Lake. Susan Glass does a wonderful job creating a vivid world with a cheerful atmosphere. Her writing is bright and colorful, making reading this book a delightful experience. Initially, I wasn’t sure I liked the fashion references, especially since I’m not fashionable enough to get all of them. I did, however, think the idea of focusing each chapter on one item from Violet’s store (described at the beginning of the chapter) gave this book a unique character. I eventually got used to the in-chapter fashion references too.

What really won me over though was the fantastic message of this book. The characters are incredibly diverse, including: Violet, the vintage store owner from a small midwestern town; Amithi, a traditional Indian wife; April, a teenage mother-to-be; Betsy, a wealthy philanthropist; and , a retired actress and mother of three. Throughout the story, all of these women come together and help one another in a beautiful example of female friendship. Their differences are sometimes challenging, but they also enable these women to support one another. Each woman has very different goals and dreams, both professionally and personally. And this book makes it very clear, that all of their goals are equally admirable. Whether a woman chooses to be mothers or have a career or both or wants to do stereotypically feminine things or not, it’s all ok. I think this is something that needs to be said more often. I am deeply grateful to the author for making this a book which not only gave me warm fuzzy feelings because of a happy story, but a book that could make a difference with it’s positive message for women at any stage of their lives.

This review first published on Doing Dewey.