Review: The Guest Book by Marybeth Whalen

My rating: 3 stars

Synopsis from Goodreads.com

When Macy Dillon was five years old her father encouraged her to draw a picture in the guestbook of a Carolina beach house. The next year, Macy returned to discover a drawing by an unidentified little boy on the facing page. Over the next eleven years the children continue to exchange drawings ... until tragedy ends visits to the beach house altogether. During her final trip to Sunset, Macy asks her anonymous friend to draw her one last picture and tells him where to hide the guest book in hopes that one day she will return to find it---and him. Twenty-five years after that first picture, Macy is back at Sunset Beach---this time toting a broken family and a hurting heart. One night, alone by the ocean, Macy asks God to help her find the boy she never forgot, the one whose beautiful pictures touched something deep inside of her. Will she ever find him? And if she does, will the guestbook unite them or merely be the relic of a lost childhood?

My Review

This was a bit of a messy all-over-the-place book for me. Macy was dealing with (or avoiding dealing with) several issues, including grief over her father's death, her relationship with her mother, disapproval over her mother's way of dealing with grief, her brother's partying, being a single mother, dealing with her ex who had abandoned her with a newborn coming back to town after five years... and that's just the first few chapters. As the novel progresses, add on four men who are pursuing her each of which she is strongly attracted to in some way. The scenes jump from one guy to the next, and each help her move on in an important way, including turning back to God. The ending was just as messy, however all the chaos, lack of communication, and uncertainty felt very realistic and eventually it all came together.

 (ARC provided via Netgalley for unbiased review)