Book Review: Maine Characters

A fun summer read that’s been called a “Grown-Up Parent Trap”

Isn't it a great cover design?

I’ll be honest: the thing that caused me to pick up Hannah Orenstein’s latest, Maine Characters, was the cover. Maine Characters releases tomorrow, but I read an advanced reader copy on Net Galley. 

It’s not the first time I’ve allowed a cover to pull me in. I’ve selected many a novel because the cover looked interesting, and this method of selecting books has been, well, hit-or-miss, at best. There was a season when I ended up reading quite a few books set during the Holocaust that I’d purchased solely because the cover was cute. . . and then I was subsequently horrified by the contents. 

But, thankfully, that’s not the case with Maine Characters.

The brightly illustrated cover pulled me in, but the storyline kept me reading. Maine Characters is the story of half-sisters Vivian and Lucy who meet for the first time after the death of their father. One of them knew of the other’s existence while the other only suspected her father might have another daughter out there somewhere. Both grew up longing for more of their father—more love, more attention, more presence and transparency. 

For a variety of reasons, Vivian and Lucy end up spending the summer together in their father’s lake house in Maine. Coming to terms with each other, and, more importantly, their complicated relationship with their father, the women learn more about themselves, how they view others and what it means to live in a healthy relationship with someone else. 

The Bookery is a Christian website, so I can’t let you bumble into this one blindly. This isn’t a saucy, racy romance, but it does include mentions of sex, drinking and some usage of strong language. Characters engage in relationships and actions that don’t fit our worldview as believers. 

Maine Characters gets a little messy—because, well, life is a little messy. These sisters fight with vitriol and envy, but they’re also funny and weirdly caring in their own ways, even when they can’t stand the sight of each other. In the end, Maine Characters a story of restoration and renewal, hope and what can happen when we put aside envy and fear and stop assigning ulterior motives to everyone else’s actions. 

Because sometimes, the people we wrote off end up being the ones we need the most. 

At its core, Maine Characters is a story about letting go of the lies we believe are true and embracing the reality of what is. Vivian and Lucy have to let go of some beliefs they’ve held onto very tightly and recognize that they were wrong. In doing so the sisters also begin to accept new visions and directions for their lives, ones they’d never have dreamed of before that summer together in the lake house on Fox Hill Lake. 

Sometimes, the things we hold on to the tightest—dreams, plans, ideas—are the things that keep us from becoming the person we’re meant to be. Maine Characters has a lot to offer as a summer read—suspicion and secrets, humor and charm, sunsets and arguments and laughter—but it’s the self-discovery that comes from letting go of lies that will stay with me the longest. 

Bookery Rating: 📙📙📙

A quick summer read about sisters, self-discovery and what can happen when we let go of lies we’ve allowed to shape our lives.