OH my, all the reviews give it 5 stars! Now I'll feel bad giving it only 3....I wanted to love it, it's right up my alley, and I love the premise...but the execution comes off as VERY self-published....! Very amateur. I mean, she can write, but this didn't quite make it. Some tedious parts, some parts she thinks are very funny, but it was one of those "you had to be there" or an inside joke known only to them.
This idea of 3 sisters in their 60s going off for 3 weeks, is really a challenging idea! In fact, if my middle sister hadn't died of breast cancer 10 years ago, all three of us Jones Girls would be in their 60s, from 64 to 68. I got to wondering how we would get along on a trip like this! I wrote to my younger sister, to describe the book, and to ask how she thought a trip like this (for us) would have gone, or would we even want to? We ARE very close as a family, but I could certainly see upsets and problems in this scenario! I felt like Liz's descriptions of her sisters left out a lot, I couldn't get a fix on them, in fact, I kept mixing them up, trying to categorize them. I know that she would not want to be violating their privacy or making them look bad, so I'm sure that stilted her writing a little bit. I know when I kept a trip journal of a trip to England with my mother and sister, I had to edit and curb what I wrote about our mother, because I KNEW she'd want to read it, and she did. I knew I couldn't write the whole truth in my journal, because she'd be too upset. She was the one who lost it on that trip!
And it's funny---we were two sisters and our mother, abroad for the very first time, spending 3 weeks in England and Scotland. And this was in 1978, before the internet or cell phones, and we didn't even have a credit card between us. Just cash and traveler's checks. I LOVED the account in the book about their lodgings in London, because I could totally picture it! The 4th floor walkup, dragging the suitcases up, and then finding a tiny room with 3 single beds crammed in! Exactly! We had a ton of one and two night stands all over England and Scotland, and by far, that was our experience. A top floor and tiny beds crammed in. And she never mentioned the decor (in 1978, invariably the rooms were filled with at least 8 flower prints, all different and clashing, or 4 tartan plaids, all different) and she never mentioned bathroom arrangements! Well, maybe once. In 1978, most of our hotel rooms did not include an en suite bathroom, we had a sink in the room, and the shared bathrooms were down the hall or even on another floor! I remember the shower stalls being downstairs on the lobby floor! (I should say, we had very little money, we were definitely traveling on the cheap and had to get rock-bottom accommodations.)
The thing I found odd about this story was that it seemed to be recent--- in modern times. They had cell phones and were able to call home. So why didn't they know about the places they booked? Where was the use of the internet? They seemed to have no idea what their lodgings would look like, and no real idea of where they were! Didn't they have maps? Wouldn't they have looked up the address of their place in Scotland and seen that it was nowhere near the city center, and in fact, was near the airport? Wouldn't they have gotten a picture of the "Fair a Far Cottage" and seen that it was apartments? I am completely puzzled. That is the whole beauty of the internet right there---you can see hotels/airbnbs/cottages/apartments, and even book the room you want based on how cute it is. Liz, if you are reading this, could you answer in the comments?
Liz did say that Les was a known penny-pincher, but I was still really surprised that she, or her sisters, didn't pony up more money (what are credit cards for?) to get a better room in London! I mean, it sounded awful for them wanting their privacy, and it wasn't for one night, it was for a week! They had to buy pillows! I would have seriously complained to the management, I mean, didn't she specify, and have confirmed, that they were getting a suite with a separate bedroom?? So where was it? Poor Les, but she put up with it. Maybe there's more to the story that we aren't privy to.
Speaking of Liz and Les, I found the (3) three-letter named sisters ODD!! I mean! Les, Liz and Rie?? Les and Liz were too close. And Rie is a Japanese name, pronounced Lee-A, I have a friend here in the States from Japan named that, and everytime I saw "Rie" in the book, I said, "Lee-A" and then had to correct myself.
All in all, it was clean, and did move right along, and it had some decent moments, I'm all for families getting along....and sisters are special, they really are. I miss the sister who died so very much, and now I depend on my remaining sister.