Customer Reviews

Skinny Dipping

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Brockway's Skinny Dipping has a bunch of terrific eccentric characters and quite a few laugh-out-loud moments. The main character is a professional medium, the hero sort of a neat freak. Both of their families have so many issues that "quirky" is way too tame to describe the total package. Warning: You will identify at least one of your own family members in this, and wonder if Brockway's been spying on your backyard barbecues!

This book defies category. It's certainly not strict romance, although there are elements of that. I don't think it's chick lit, either. I can only say that it IS a page turner for me, and that's becoming harder and harder for me to find these days. And for those who read Brockway's first venture away from straight romance/historicals, Hot Dish, and still weren't convinced you'd love her new work, you really want to go "Dipping." It's a lot funnier and deeper, IMO.

Mimi Olsen , Queen of the Slackers, works as a medium. She spends summers at the Olsen retreat on a Minnesota lake-Camp Ducky. Joe is King of the Universe of Overachievers . They meet when she is ducking out of the lake after losing her bathing suit while skinny dipping and he is on his way to visit his brainiac son. These 2 should never have an HEA . They do and Brockway eases you to that with fun and adventure. This is one of those "it's late but I cannot put his book down " books.

Jill

NY Times best selling author, Connie Brockway has a new book! Her second women's fiction novel is titled Skinny Dipping. You smiled at the title, didn't you, because it smacks of the rollicking good romp that it is.

Mimi Olson is a tele-medium (she speaks to the dead) and comes from a long line (depending on which side of the family tree one happens to be discussing) of slackers or type A personalities. Mimi falls, no, willingly wallows in the slacker department. She's never met a decision she really wants to make, until it comes to a run-down northern Minnesota lake enclave called Chez Duckey.

Chez Duckey has been jointly owned by the various Olson family members for over a hundred years. And now there is talk of a sale! Not if Mimi has anything to say about it. She may be a slacker and may not want the role of leader, but there is the bigger issue of family, summers vacationing at `the lake' and saving the land from the dreaded McMansions beginning to spring up around the lake.

Things are complicated enough in Mimi's life what with her trying to save Chez Duckey and searching for her long-time missing father. When Mimi loses her swim suit, she burglarizes a car looking for the blanket that every self-respecting Minnesotan keeps in the back seat or trunk. Muddy and naked, she meets the car's owner, Joe, a control freak extraordinaire, who has an estranged son who owns one of the McMansions. Now this story will keep you turning the pages and belly laughing. Add in all the Olson relatives (including that 82-year-old skinny-dipping matriarch Birgie), a little romance, some greed, some growing up-and you get more laughter mixed with a healthy dose of chaos.

Skinny Dipping is delightful. You'll enjoy the quirky Mimi and the hilarious band of characters Brockway has created. If you're from Minnesota and every summer you trek `up to the lake' to the cabin, you've got a leg up on everyone else. You know what she's talking about because you live it.

Armchair Interviews says: Skinny Dipping is a wonderful start to 2008. Buy it, you'll love it and then check out Brockway's other titles--all as good as Skinny-Dipping.

I am a long time fan of Connie Brockway and eagerly await each new title she releases. I was happy to hear that she was branching out into contemporary romance because she has a unique comedic gift which I think can really be effective in contemporary settings. I also appreciate that her last two books have featured a 40 something heroine. As a 39 year old, it is good to find a heroine one can relate to.
Having said all of that, I have found the last two books a bit disappointing. (And I'm judging them a 4 star book on the "Brockway Scale" which means they would be a 10 star book compared to 99% of the junk that gets published today.) My major complaint is that Brockway needs a better editor. There are just too many threads in this book. Too many characters, too many plot lines, too many motives....
I think it was Coco Chanel who said, "Once you think you are dressed, look in the mirror and take one thing off." In the case of this book, it would have been leave at least three things off. Maybe the relationship with the sisters, maybe 20 or so different quirky relatives, maybe Mimi's slovenliness, maybe the dogs, maybe Prescott, maybe the lost father or the French mother... it really doesn't matter. We needed more conversations and sense of growth in the relationship between Mimi and Joe and a little less of everything else.
Having said all that, I really did like the book (and have the bags under my eyes this morning to prove it!) Brockway does a great job of portraying a special summer place. I've never been to Minnesota, but we vacation every year at a small, undeveloped beach every year that serves the same purpose as her lake location in drawing our family together. I thought that theme was really beautiful.

Like "Hot Dish" this is a funny, quirky, & engaging novel! I especially enjoyed the fascinatingly odd characters. And it is so rare to find a romance novel that moves away from the typical cookie-cutter plots. For once, I couldn't guess what was going to happen about 25 pages in. Thanks Ms. Brockway for this enjoyable read.

I absolutely adored this book! I thought Mimi was a great character. I loved the way she matured during the course of the book to show HER true character but I also think she was a bit of "wish fulfillment" for all of us women who are trying so hard to do and have it all in this life only to find ourselves exhausted and burnt out. I'd love to spend a day floating in an inner tube on the lake with Mimi!

I fell in love with the delightful cast of characters, especially Joe, Prescott and "Bill". Every scene with Prescott (who would fit in wonderfully with the cast of THE BIG BANG THEORY) was a hoot. I laughed out loud several times. The romance between Joe and Mimi developed beautifully and I could honestly see these two having a joyful future together.

This book with its wacky and warm humor reminded me of the best of Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jennifer Crusie. Connie Brockway really hit her contemporary stride with this offering and I highly recommend it.

I've never read a book by Brockway before and was delighted when I started reading "Skinny Dipping." Unfortunately my delight didn't last long. Like another reviewer, I found there were too many characters to follow. Also I never really felt any heat between Joe and Mimi. Mimi started out to be charming and kooky but by the end of the book, I thought she was just a selfish, inconsiderate slob. If you want to live like a pig in your own home, that's your choice but when you're living in another person's place and turn it into a pigsty, that's NOT cool. I really never could understand why Joe thought Mimi was so charming. She was a 41-year-old, barely employed looser and by the end I was hoping Joe would find someone else. All in all the book was too long. I think it would have been greatly improved with some of the mess cut out.

When she was still a child, Mimi Olson's father had dropped her off at the family cottage system and vanished. Now, thirty years later, she still clings to that set of vacation bungalos and cabins. The Olson family is largely matriarchial, and while Mimi is too young to be the official ruler, she plays a key role in holding the family together--and in maintaining the status quo with an ongoing family vacation site that has endured through generations. Still, with lake property commanding huge premiums, can the Olson family really afford to keep up the place--or will Mimi find herself abandoned once more?

Joe Tierney knows he failed his son--a genius with no social skills who's built a monstrosity on the shores of a small lake. He does his best to make up for his failures--but his son seems always to pose him tests he's sure to fail. When Joe decides to visit his son, he doesn't mind the distraction a sexy (and naked because she was skinny dipping) woman poses. In fact, he's quickly fascinated by the female who seems to understand a lot more about what's going on than he would have guessed.

Mimi recognizes the attraction, but she's never let herself be anything but independent. A brief affair with Joe would be fine, but she's got to draw the line. The problem is, can she trust herself to keep her promise or will she start to depend on a man who has already proven himself as unreliable as her long-vanished father?

Author Connie Brockway creates a fascinating, damaged character in Mimi Olson. Equally damaged, and even more fascinating is Joe's son, Prescott. By accident, Mimi sticks Prescott with a dog, opening new possibilities for social contact to the reclusive genius. Mimi's psychological problems, caused by her father's desertion, cause her to intentionally go through life without goals. Can the possibility of losing her cherished beach home wake her up to her potential?

Brockway throws a lot at the reader--psychological issues, conflict based on misunderstanding (Joe falsely accuses Mimi of taking advantage of Prescott and believes she has misled him about her background and wealth), the question of whether to sell the family vacation site, the role of dogs in a largely human household, and a reclusive genius. To these she adds some truly funny situations and witty dialogue. I would have liked to see a bit more integration of the conflicts keeping Joe and Mimi apart. Although I didn't get this, Brockway's strong writing kept me invested in the characters (although I have to say, I didn't really care that much whether the vacation home, Chez Ducky, was saved or not).

I really enjoyed this book but it might not be everyone's cup of tea. If you want a more typical romance novel that has frequent sex scenes and/or most of the action centering around the "hero" and "heroine," you might not like this book. If you are open to a different kind of story, you'll love it.

I'm not sure it is as much a romance as a comedic love story that covers family relationships and traditions as well as a romantic relationship. One of the other reviewers called it "messy;" it is a bit messy the same way that a big family dinner is messy compared to a quiet table for two but you wouldn't want to leave any of the relatives out, even the ones that make you crazy. That "mess" is a big part of the charm of this book for me. The characters are flawed and annoy each other but still care for each other.

The other reason I enjoyed the book is that I am also a Minnesotan with a life-long attachment to a "third-rate" lake and I have stayed at a friend's family cabin complex that sounds very much like Chez Ducky. The setting rang absolutely true for me.

I hope Ms. Brockway brings back the Olsons for books about Prescott, Sarah and Mary.

Garrison Kiehlor, the Cohen Brothers, and now Connie Brockway have written about this state in a way that makes me want to take a road trip there. Now. Well, perhaps I'll wait until spring.

This book was by turns lol funny, wise and romantic. Ms. Brockway has taken a familiar premise-- Mr Overachiever meets Miss Slacker-- and made it completely fresh and surprising. Add to that an old family cabin on a remote Minnesota lake and a cast that could have played in a Preston Sturges film, and you've almost got the picture. It's also about growing older and the ties that bind. This book just doesn't fit into any easily defined categories. Hmmm... If you like the Cohen Brothers, the Lake Wobegon monologues, Pat Gaffney and Susan Elizabeth Phillips-- then I think you might love this book.

I really did. Thank you Ms. Brockway. I hope you're busy writing another one.