Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for this ARC! The cover drew me in and the story of sisters kept me reading. Vivian and Lucy are half sisters who spend time at their family’s lake house every summer. The only detail is they each go with their father alone. After a lifetime apart, they run into each other at the cabin after their father’s death and finally face years of secrets. The family drama kept me interested until the last page and I’m excited to read other books by Hannah Orenstein.

This is the story of Vivian and Lucy, half sisters and what happens when their father passes away. The women had vastly different experiences and relationships with their father. Once their father dies, Vivian heads tohis vacation house in Maine to prepare to sell it. When she arrives, she meets Lucy, whom she has never met. Infact, she did not even know that Lucy existed. Lucy was at the cabin for her month with her father. .Although Vivian is determined to sell, Lucy convinces her to wait. As the days and weeks pass, the two learn about each other and wonder if they can have a relationship.

I spent so many family vacations at my uncle's lake house in Maine and I was super excited for this one. I loved the setting and descriptions of their house and the lake. I really did enjoy the book, but it wasn't a novel that I was yearning to sit down and read every day. It dragged a bit for me in certain spots and was pretty predictable and the back and forth got old after awhile. I wanted to love the characters more, I think my favorite was Caleb- would have enjoyed knowing more about it.

All in all, a quick beach read.

I received an ARC of this ebook from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review. This one started off rough for me. Neither of the main characters were likable. Vivian is a massive hypocrite and Lucy is very immature for her big age. It did start to grow on me as the story progressed and I liked how it ended.

I truly do love a Maine book & the coastal cabin setting of this one was no different! It was so vivid in my mind and I wished I could’ve teleported myself there 😌

I loved that this book didn’t focus on romance (ofc it was sprinkled throughout) but it truly is more of a women’s fiction/contemporary fiction! This is a veryyyy character driven read and unfortunately I don’t become super attached to either of the sisters, Vivian and Lucy.

Still such a strong book and I will forever be a fan of Hannah Orenstein 🫶🏼

& we can’t forget about the cover - IT IS STUNNING 😍

rating: 3.5 ⭐️

*thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

This was a beautiful story about sisterhood and the complexities of life. This story covers the hardships between parent/child, siblings, and even romantic relationships.

I absolutely loved the setting of this story. A house on the lake with a small town feel was so comforting in a way. The writing made me want to visit Maine!

Even though the characters are flawed, you can see that their mistakes are not malicious. They demonstrate what it is to be human and the things we do to feel loved. There are family secrets that come to light throughout the story which represent how complicated family dynamics can be. I love how the characters handled the hardships and showed growth throughout the book.

The pacing was a bit slow for me. It wasn't until later in the book when I became more invested in the characters. By the end, this story had me in tears!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the ARC of this book.

*Maine Characters* by Hannah Orenstein is a contemporary novel that explores themes of love, self-discovery, and personal growth.
Set in a small fictional Maine coastal town, the story follows a group of characters navigating relationships, family expectations, and their own ambitions—while coming to terms with the fact that a father may have not been everything he seemed. While the book offers an engaging setting and some relatable moments, the plot can feel SUPER predictable at times, and the characters’ developments aren't always as deep or compelling as one might hope. The two main female characters follow EXACTLY the same arc, which really was a let down in the final act.
While an enjoyable VERY New England-summer atmospheric read, it doesn't quite move past the almost saccharine, Hallmark/Lifetime movie genre. 3 stars.

This is a gorgeous cover and it makes people think this is going to be a lovely story or a romantic novel. This is a story about two sisters who never get the chance to know each other because of secrets and lies. Their father is the source of this pain. There was a lot of time spent on the poor decisions of these characters. The last quarter of the book gives the characters chances to redeem themselves but there was some little too late moments that make this book a bit sad.
The writing is strong but this wasn’t a feel good story for me.

2 sisters, Vivian and Lucy, who find each other for the first time after their dad dies. 2 sisters who were kept from each other for their entire life because their dad did not have the courage to tell the truth. 2 sisters who find sisterhood on sunset boat trips, popcorn and movies, and the eventual shared love of the lake house their dad left to only one of them.

This book took me almost 2 months to read. I think the first 6 chapters were a bit hard to get through. The length of the chapters were a bit daunting. Vivian and Lucy were not characters I felt much attachment to. But as the story went on and I learned more about them and they began having more of a relationship, I started to enjoy it more. Although the premise of this book is not something a ton of people deal with, I think that the problems both Lucy and Vivian were dealing with are very normal. I don’t think I really liked how it felt like the entire first half we were exploring the relationships of Vivian and Lucy, but after they leave Oscar and Patrick, we just make right with Caleb and Harrison and then they kind of disappear. I know this book is not about romance, so it is not that big of a deal, but felt weird to me.

I really liked the story itself, but did not love the characters as much. I really thought Vivian was wrote well. We watched her grow and gain some substance, but Lucy felt flat.

My favorite scene in the entire book was when the 4 of them were on the boat at sunset scattering Hank’s ashes. I enjoyed that each woman was able to share what Hank meant to them when he was alive, but all of them gained some closure as they dumped his ashes. They all got to move on in some way.

I enjoyed that this book focused on the female experience and was about 2 sisters finding each other. There are a lot of people who need this type of book

The cover absolutely draws you in!

I loved the setting of picturesque Maine and the laid back vacation this book made me start planning. I was sold by the promise of being “parent trap for adults” and was surprised by the emotional impact of this story.

I overall enjoyed it but Lucy’s character was a bit of a struggle to read. I found she was less forgiving than she was trying to be portrayed and she wasn’t open (which is maybe why she was with Patrick for so long). The end did start to drag a little but I do think this book has some good shining moments and is a good lake read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dutton for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 rounded up.

I absolutely think this could be a 5 star book for a lot of readers. The plot is interesting, the writing is great, and I think it’s a perfect book for fans of contemporary fiction, especially as a summer read, the last 50% especially.

For me, it was complicated and a lot of my mixed feelings are totally just personal/user error. I knew it was contemporary but thought there would be a little more to the romantic subplots. Obviously the relationship between the sisters would be the focus of the novel, but I felt like that didn’t start till the 48% mark, at which point I was a lot more invested in both the characters and the story.

Once I was in the second half, I did enjoy it a lot more but it wasn’t until I was crying at the end that I realized some of the disconnection I felt was absolutely on me and not the book itself.

In another time, I would have been reading this in August, on the lake, at the motel my family has been going to for decades. In reality, my grandmother passed a year and an half ago, days before the annual trip. We went for a few days anyway around her funeral and the motel was under new management and everything was wrong. It turned out to be our last trip too, as they never answered any of our emails to get rebooked for last year, despite staying in the same rooms for the same week for so many years.

It wasn’t until the end of the book that I realized I was putting up walls especially when it came to how much Lucy loved and wanted to keep the house. It made me realize how well the importance of the house and their grief was interwoven into things, even as the focus shifted more towards the girls developing a relationship and figuring out how to move forward with their lives separately and together.

I think this may have been the right book, wrong time for me but I would definitely reread this with these feelings in mind and would recommend it to others.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the ARC.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: 🖊️ Literary Fiction
Recommend:✅

Good Beach Read Alert! 🏖️ “Maine Characters” is the perfect beach read, even more of that beach is actually a Lakehouse.

I loved the premise of “Maine Characters” and it’s executed very well. Vivian and Lucy are strangers who are also half sisters that find themselves sharing their dad’s Lakehouse for the summer after he unexpectedly passes away. Obviously tensions are high for both sisters, who are both also at different crossroads in their lives.

A *few* plot points in this one are a little eye-roll inducing but honestly, who cares, it’s a beach read! It’s well written, easy to read, and slightly scandalous.

You’ll love this book if you love:
✅Family Secrets
✅Beach Reads
✅Dual POV

Maine Characters is a wonderfully written story about life and all of the messy aspects of it. Although not currently summer, I love the landscape painted by the author and at times it even reminded me of an Abby Jimenez or Emily Henry book. I really enjoyed the depth conveyed through the characters while their relationships grow. Overall a good read!

Maine Characters was an interesting read. It revealed how messy lives and relationships can be and that there are always more than one side to a story.

This was a really beautiful tale about grief, difficult family relationships, and making the most of the circumstances you’ve been dealt. I absolutely loved the setting and felt fully immersed in a summer in Maine, though I’ve never been there before. It made me long for lazy days on the lake and a slower summer in nature. The imagery and writing were spectacular. The character growth of not only Lucy and Vivian, but also their mothers was nice to watch unfold slowly throughout the book, and I enjoyed seeing how their relationships with each other evolved as well. By the end I was tearing up several times. I liked that things weren’t just easily explained away or tidied up. The characters had messy lives and were in an uncomfortable situation, and while there was a bit of a happy ending and everything ended up satisfyingly wrapped up, they still lived with the tension of the grief over their father and how he had disappointed them all. He didn’t have a redeeming arch that made him out to be better than he was, and I liked that the book allowed some things to just not be resolved or happily ever after. Overall I really enjoyed the book, although I felt the pacing could have been a bit faster and sometimes felt it was slower than I’d like.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really wanted to like this book with two half sisters going to their dad’s lake house for the summer, but I had to DNF at 50%. But the way the characters acted were really immature and petty for the age that they are at in their lives. To me they acted like teenagers or little kids when they’re in their 30s. And with the cheating trope dragged along in there didn’t sit right with me.

What also lost me with this book was the writing. The time jumps and transitions between POV’s in the same chapter in some places were not well done to where I had to re-read the section in order to understand what was going on.

There just wasn’t enough character development for me to continue reading this book because of the way the characters acted.

liked the premise but couldn't relate to the protagonist in the first few pages, wanted a bit more to catch my attention.

Great story line that revolved around two daughters who shared the same father but different mothers. It was mutilayered with many relationships and flowed from character to character. Recommend.

4.5 rounded up - I laughed and cried over this novel with it’s believable, flawed characters and relationships. The premise is as described - a spin on The Parent Trap, but for adults. Two thirty year old half sisters clash at a lake house in Maine. For Vivian, she suspected she had a half sister, but no real proof. For Lucy, while she knew about her half sister, she was the secret daughter stashed away. When their father dies, they find themselves together at the lake house, with very different agendas.

The characters are so real. Watching their relationships grow and change was such a journey. It’s rare that a character I can’t stand in the beginning has a redeeming arc that actually seems real, but this author truly showed growth in her characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy and a chance to read this early. All opinions are my own.

this book is beautifully written and the cover is breathtaking.

the storyline in this hit very close to home. i discovered in 2021 that i had a half sister through 23 and me. (her mom and my dad broke up before her mom realized she was pregnant with her and didn't tell my dad, 34 years later she found us.) we still have a lot to work through so this book gave everything i needed it to and more. i cried, i laughed. this was just so so good. 💕