A Booksquirm Book Club pick - and fortunately the first book voted off of the island. Our assignment was to read chapter 1. The following are my thoughts of the book based on that first chapter.

This chapter would have been shorter if the reader didn't have to experience daja vu while reading it. For example, on page 3 "she (Belinda) knew she would remember Blake and this moment for the rest of her life." And then on page 4 "It was a day and a moment that Belinda knew would be engraved in her mind forever." Apparently it was so memorable that Ms. Steel wanted to make sure her notation of it was remembered by her readers for the rest of their lives. At first I thought maybe this was an isolated incident, but then she harped on the fact that Blake had been absentee father for the kids, especially for Sam, which is evidenced on pages 11 and 26. Oh, and let's not forget this little gem on page 22 "Daphne & Jack both had Blake's almost jet-black hair" and then again on page 27 "She (Daphne) was a beautiful girl, with her mother's features and creamy skin, and her father's jet-black hair." Really, Ms. Steel, if you are going to harp on something could you at least be consistent? Is Blake's hair "almost" jet-black or is it actually jet-black because this detail is obviously important enough to mention twice in the same chapter. And you give me all these repetitive facts but then leave me with "All three of them went to Dalton, and Maxine loved the school." Great! Mom likes the school she sends all three of her kids... but wtf? It took me a Google search to find out why someone would think that just dropping the name of the school would mean that readers would know why it was significant. BTW, in case you are interested, tuition for 2010-11 was $35,300. For the love of all things holy, I'm hoping never to have to read another chapter of this book!