Book Review: "Rock the Boat" by Beck Dorey-Stein
"Rock the Boat" by Beck Dorey-Stein
Synopsis: When Kate Campbell’s life in Manhattan suddenly implodes, she is forced to return to Sea Point, the small town full of quirky locals, quaint bungalows, and beautiful beaches where she grew up. She knows she won’t be home for long; she’s got every intention (and a three-point plan) to win back everything she thinks she’s lost.
Meanwhile, Miles Hoffman—aka “The Prince of Sea Point”—has also returned home to prove to his mother that he’s capable of taking over the family business, and he’s promised to help his childhood best friend, Ziggy Miller, with his own financial struggles at the same time. Kate, Miles, and Ziggy converge in Sea Point as the town faces an identity crisis when a local developer tries to cash in on its potential. The summer swells, and white lies and long-buried secrets prove as corrosive as the salt air, threatening to forever erode not only the bonds between the three friends but also the landscape of the beachside community they call home.
Full of heart and humor—and laced with biting wit—Rock the Boat proves that even when you know all the back roads, there aren’t any shortcuts to growing up.
Rating: 4.25
Trigger Warnings: parental death
Review: As I sit down to write reviews, one of the first things I do is choose the categories on how I would class a book — is it a romance or a thriller? is it about magic? — and honestly, this one gave me pause. There is romance, but it’s not a romance. There’s suspense, but it’s life suspense, not life-and-death suspense. There’s not a ton of activity, but it’s a perfect capsule of a summer for three friends who are all trying to get their shit together, and honestly, that feels like the right book for summer 2021.
Kate, who has her life together on paper, ends up moving back home to her small hometown after her boyfriend of well over a decade breaks up with her the same day she thinks he’s going to propose. All of a sudden, she doesn’t have anywhere to live or to work, and she’s back (and heartbroken) living with her parents. Soon, she reunites with her childhood best friend Ziggy, who has never left Sea Point and is trying to hold the family business together after his father’s unexpected death. Next, Miles, the rich kid that every small town has, ends up returning home to claim his “birthright” to run the resort started by his mother. We spend the summer with Kate, Ziggy, and Miles as they grow up and together again.
Honestly, it’s a little refreshing to see people that are my peer group (early 30s for a few more weeks, thank you very much) who don’t have it all together. Many of the coming-of-age stories I read are either kids in their twenties or older people who are trying to figure out what they really want. There’s a lot of millennial mocking about…everything we do…but I really related to how poorly all three of them were “adulting” even though they were well beyond the age that we’re expected to grow up.
I read and adored Beck’s accounting of her time as a White House stenographer (Bookshop | Kindle), and I was admittedly a little nervous to see how her writing style would translate to fiction. Well, I needn't have worried at all. This book is just as witty and biting as her memoir, and it’s also full of quirky characters and a small town I only wish was real. Beck created a perfect setting for this clever story, and I am beyond impressed at this debut effort.
Ultimately, this book made me nostalgic for my summer haunts on the Gulf Coast, and it even made me look at beach locations on the East Coast after many years of insisting these beach towns weren’t worth visiting. It’s a perfect summertime book — a wonderful coming-of-age story that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
TL;DR: A quick, clever, and casually beautiful coming-of-age story that will make you wish you were reading it at the shore.
If You Liked This, Try These:
“Beach Read” by Emily Henry (Bookshop | Kindle | Moira’s Review)
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