The Goodbye Summer by Patricia Gaffney

Friday night before H. got here, I skimmed the new Patricia Gaffney. OMG, it was depressing. Capital D, capital PRESSING. Really a downer.

The main character, Caddie, is a young woman who was raised by her grandmother who has recently had a fall and wants to go to live temporarily in a local convalescent home. She wants to give her granddaughter a chance to be on her own and spread her wings. Through visiting her grandmother, Caddie meets an older woman she bonds with, a young man with a head injury and several other people. She also accidentally gets pregnant from an affair that goes sour and has to decide if she wants to get an abortion or not.

Fast forward 200 pages and the older friend is dead, Caddie breaks the heart of the head injury guy who's fallen for her, and then she miscarries.

Bleh. Bleh. Bleh. Bleh. Bleh. Bleh. Bleh. Bleh.

Could this be more depressing? I think not. It is true that in the end there is a somewhat tentative resolution of the romance, but Caddie is still a mess, the friend is still dead, and the baby is still gone.

I think I've given up on Gaffney for good now. Her historicals were excellent, but her contemps make me crave Prozac.