Live A Little by Madeleine Reiss

          3.5 Stars

Lottie, Tina and Mia; three sisters who grew up in a shattered household.  Three sisters who could only rely on each other; certainly their warring parents could not be relied on.  Now there are only two and with Lottie about to get married Tina is determined that they have some fun together first.  So, American Road Trip it is.

To be honest I didn't really like either of the sisters. 

Tina is self-centred and selfish, but puts this film of insouciance over her behaviour.  She tells everyone that she is spontaneous and lives in the moment when really she is deeply afraid of being seen as ordinary and somehow afraid of being noticed.  This leads her to behave in ways not only unbecoming to her aging years (okay she isn't THAT old but she acts like a perennial teenager) but makes her discount others so easily.  Case in point is her real reason for suggesting (forcing) Lottie to take this trip with her.

Lottie is the eternally sensible girl; the one who never takes risks and likes to blend in to the background.  Her relationship with Dan sounds stultifying and I never really got a sense of them having an adult relationship, he feels more like her protector from the world.  There's nothing inherently wrong with being a sensible person but she comes across as being pretty sanctimonious with it and I just couldn't take a shine to her at all.

It's all a little bit Thelma and Louise but without interesting protagonists.  Sure we have the pretty boy along for the ride and there is the odd injection of danger but it just didn't work for me.  I wasn't invested in the outcome of the road trip, I wasn't invested in the sister's relationship with each other.  Fortunately we are kept guessing for quite a bit of the book about what happened to Mia (all we know at the outset is that she is dead) and that is what kept me reading.

As a novel it passes the time well enough but it didn't enthrall me or make me want to stay up to read just another chapter.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK PROVIDED BY READERS FIRST.