Customer Reviews

The Last Beach Bungalow

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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
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After having read The Last Beach Bungalow, Jennie Nash's first novel, all I can add is that I hope she keeps writing books as strongly written and as resonant as this one! It is truly one of the best books I've read in a long time and I read plenty of wonderful books, so that is saying something.

What will YOU, the reader, find to love about this one? Several things. For one, think of the way the word "home" is used in our language. We don't just use it alone but as part and parcel of so many evocative phrases and terms such as "being at home"...."make yourself at home"...."heart and home" ...."feeling at home"...."homey" ...and so forth.

Whether you've ever lived in a home you loved or are searching for your dream home, you'll relate to this book. Add a woman, April Newton, who is a cancer survivor and you have extra appeal, one that strikes hard for this reviewer who can't help feeling for a woman who is shaken to the core after a struggle with breast cancer.

Even though April has passed the 5 year watershed moment that ups her chances of beating cancer, she isn't feeling joyous. Call it post-traumatic disorder or just plain fear and grief but her life no longer resembles the one she once had. She misses her old life.

Instead of the intimate marriage she once had, she has a marriage full of tension and strain. April has been scared for so long that she has forgotten how to celebrate life, even in the wake of good new news. Meanwhile, her husband is trying to build their dream home.

That is when April sees an amazing ad for a beach bungalow in Redondo Beach, one which will be sold at a bargain price to the right person or family. The current owner wants her beloved house to go to someone who will promise to "preserve and protect it" and she is asking for stories of people who will do just that - and she wants to know why they'd love her home.

While that premise may seem unbelievable to you, it is based on a REAL contest that was partial inspiration for the author, Jennie Nash, to write this book. The other? Her own history with cancer.

I have to add that even if you never get a chance to read this book completely, you should buy it. Why? Because there are three section in the back of the book that show what a talented author and writer can do to make a book EXTRA special.

In this case, Nash has added a set of discussion questions that will have you searching your soul about what home and family means to you. Then she tops that by including two real life memoirs that served as fuel for the book, one based on her own cancer and the other on the contest that happened in real life (a contest to win a home but set up very differently than the one in this book).

What else can I add? Well, one thing....at around $14.00, full price, this book is one of the best bargains around. It'll have you laughing, crying and talking for days...and might even inspire you to write your own novel!

Here's another great book from this author: The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming: And Other Lessons I Learned From Breast Cancer

I didn't plan to stay up late and read this book in one sitting, but that is exactly what happened. From the opening lines, I was drawn into April's world and wanted to keep reading to see where she was headed. Perhaps some of the connection with April and her story stems from my own cancer survivorship. Perhaps it stems from the ever-present search for the real sense of "home" and its significance. Perhaps Nash has just written a really engrossing story with very real characters--characters with whom I was able to instantly connect. No matter where the connection came from, this was a heartwarming read. And I am glad that I stayed up late to finish it!

April Newton has reason to celebrate. She is a five-year breast cancer survivor. But for April, the cloud that is called "cancer" won't allow her to fully surrender to living as a survivor. Trapped by the fears, doubts, and "unknowingness" that come with a cancer diagnosis, April finds herself confused and frightened about her own future as well as that of her marriage and her family.

With the cancer survivorship as the backstory, readers are introduced to April, her husband, Rick, and daughter Jackie as they are in the midst of building a new home that Rick designed for April at the time of her diagnosis. In an unexpected turn of events, as the Newtons' move-in-date approaches, April happens upon a beach house that is for sale far below market value "to the right buyer," as defined by its owner, Peg Torrey. Believing that she is meant to live in this house, April sets out to be the winner of the right to buy the property. But in the process, she is confronted with the real meaning of home and what it would take to make her feel the happiness she longs to feel as a survivor. In the process, she learns more than she could ever hope to learn about not only herself, but her husband, her marriage, her family and the other truly important things in life.

by Lee Ambrose
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Jennie Nash's debut novel is a beautifully written account of one woman's attempt to rediscover pleasure in her marriage after surviving a terrifying bout with breast-cancer. Nash's heroine, April Newton, has rebuffed death and now has everything to live for---but she doesn't know what or who to live for now that she is cancer-free. As a busy frelance magazine writer, the mother of a teenage girl, and wife to a successful builder, Newton is a lucky woman, with a beautiful new house under construction. The house is gift from her husband, but April can't help feeling that the new house does not represent a new lease on life. Nash navigates the tricky sexual dynamics that exist in marriage after one partner has survived an almost-fatal illness, and she brings the California coast-line to life in lush, vividly-written passages. You will remember April and her challenges long after you finish this memorable novel.

The Last Beach Bungalow is a wonderful book. When you buy this book, you will not want to put it down. Go get a nice cup of tea, and curl up with this sweet story told by Jennie, who is a brilliant writer and storyteller.

April seems to have it all, a loving husband, the recent news that she is a five-year breast cancer survivor, a teenage daughter she gets along with, great friends, and a great career as a freelance writer specializing in magazine articles. Her husband, a contractor, has been remodeling their home - the perfect place with a view of the ocean. But April isn't quite satisfied, or perhaps more correctly, she doesn't know what she wants. When she sees the last bungalow on the beachfront in Redondo Beach, California for sale, she has to have the charming Craftsman cottage. However it isn't for sale by conventional methods, the elderly widow who owns it wants it kept as is, and will sell the home, worth millions for its lot alone, to the person whose essay she selects, for only $300,000. April becomes obsessed with the house. And despite the mansion on the hill that her husband is building for her, she sees herself in the little cottage on the beach.

Jennie Nash integrates her personal history as a breast cancer survivor with her writing experience to create a lyrical novel that readers can readily identify with. From the small details (naming the books she is looking at during a trip to the bookstore) to the big picture, she does everything right to keep the reader interested and, eventually, creating a very satisfying read. It's a short story, one that could easily be read in one sitting, full of characters that seem to jump off the page. It's very sweet and tender from the relationships between the main characters to the friendship April forges with the owner of "The Last Beachfront Bungalow". This book is highly recommended and I look forward to reading not only Nash's memoir about her own struggle with breast cancer, but her next novel that comes out soon.

This book is fabulous! I couldn't put it down. The characters are compelling and believable. The descriptions are wonderful. I feel like I know these people now and am left wondering how they have been doing since the end of the book. I loved feeling like I was getting an insiders perspective on the magazine writer's world as well as a glimps at the thoughts of someone who has survived breast cancer. This book left me smiling, but not for the reason I thought it would. I'm sending this book to my friends. I feel like a found a real treasure.

I am still thinking about this book - 2 weeks after I finished reading it! I have passed it to friends and family to read and all have loved it. Older readers, younger readers, readers who have survived breast cancer and readers who have never had a serious illness...all have loved this story. It makes you think about home, about how to live and what living means. It makes you smile and nod as author, Jennie Nash, describes, so perfectly, relationships between a mother and daughter, a husband and wife, and friends. Her descriptions of the insides of houses and of a beautiful, old CA coastal neighborhood are wonderful. I highly recommend this book.

The fifth anniversary of her being cancer free has arrived for April Newton; but she does not feel like celebrating the milestone. Physically she may be doing well, but mentally she is depressed. She believes her once close relationship with her husband is slowly eroding even as he constructs their "dream home".

Instead she finds contentment with a nearby Redondo Beach bungalow, whose owner Peg has put up for sale. Instead of the dream house she prefers THE LAST BEACH BUNGALOW. However, she wonders how much she will hurt her husband if she tells him how she feels.

This is a fascinating character study of a woman who has physically defeated cancer, but mentally is still fighting windmills. April is a wonderful person struggling with the dilemma of whether to tell or not to tell her spouse as that is the question she must face. If she tells him how she feels, she will hurt him as he is building their new dream house out of love for her; if she does not, she will go deeper into depression and he will know something is wrong. THE LAST BEACH BUNGALOW is a strong family drama that realistically looks deep at after the cancer is gone.

Harriet Klausner

I agree with the other reviewer that said she just didn't get it. I also understand the fight with cancer, her husband's distance, etc. But when I finished the book I thought, "huh?" It was just an ok book - I struggled to finish it. It seemed choppy to me - something was missing, I'm just not sure what.

I just finished reading "The last beach Bungalow" and I'm sorry to say, I just don't get it. The author has a nice voice, but that's it. The plot, if any, lost me. That fine thread that's supposed to keep you wondering didn't do it for me. Her four years and eleven months recovery from cancer I got. But the `bungalow' to me, should have had this family. It leads you to believe that, toward the end. However, this ending left me hanging off a cliff. No tie up at all that I saw. Too many characters for me with no reason, along with name-dropping of clothes. I may try another of Ms. Nash's books because I like her voice.