Sunday, February 28, 2016

Book Review: Multiple Listings by Tracy McMillan


Multiple Listings by Tracy McMillan
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication Date: March 8th, 2016
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Format: Hardcover, E-book
Amazon Buy Link: HERE
Goodreads Link:
Em's Rating: ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Book Blurb: What would you do if your ex-con father suddenly came to visit…indefinitely? Family drama ensues when Nicki’s dad unexpectedly wants to move in with her, her son, and her boyfriend in this comedic novel from successful TV writer Tracy McMillan. Nicki Daniels owns a home appraisal business, but real estate is her true passion: she lives for open houses and really knows her way around a floor plan. And especially at this juncture of her life, real estate has come to signify the stability she is trying to build with her teenage son, Cody, and her much younger boyfriend, Jake. She’s finally ready to find the perfect house for the three of them and work on a new business venture with Jake that she thinks will jump-start their lives together. Meanwhile, Ronnie, a longtime inmate at a nearby correctional facility, is getting some good news for once—there was a mistake in his sentencing, and he’s eligible to get out of prison. Ronnie decides his best option to avoid homelessness is to move in with his estranged daughter: Nicki. Even though they haven’t spoken in years, her door is always open to him, right? Imbued with wit and profound insight into relationships, Multiple Listings speaks poignantly—and often hilariously—about the ties that bind families of all types together. 

 Em’s Review: 
If I had to summarize my feels for this book in one sentence it would be: Multiple Listings was and enjoyable read. Much like a chick flick can be an enjoyable movie to watch, which, is a lot of how this book reads. It FEELS like a chick flick. It just fits the pre-summer enjoyable movie feel. You know April to early May films, before cape-wearing-exploding-dinosaurs rake in untold amounts of cash. Maybe it is because the author has written for TV.

This book is a good place to spend a weekend, kind of like when I can put on a Hallmark movie and just clean the house. While you like the characters and become invested with them for the time you are there, you leave the whole book with a feeling of, “that was a nice time.” You saw the characters have a kind of struggle in a kind of dysfunctional life, but no more than you, or I, or anyone has a “dysfunctional” life. In fact, Nicki and her son, and even her dad are written to be more “slightly-off-functional” than dysfunctional. Take Ronnie, Nicki’s father come home from 17 years in prison. A man who Nicki pulled away from enough to not even accept his letters. Who was a “user” and yet, within a day she just lets him bond with her son, because he is not “that bad.” Or Nicki who “chooses the wrong men,” in a they didn’t fit way, not a druggy-wife beating way. They just all felt to normal for dysfunctional to me.

 Like any chick flick, this book is littered with the chick flick cliches:

  • “Troubled” son single mom can’t reach, send in a male character to bond! (and the quotation marks tells you how troubled I felt Cody was) 
  • Quirky best friend that has the odd name (Peaches) to let the reader know we have a wild card here! 
  •  Best friend troubles that fixed in the speed of “Holly Shit I think I got whiplash.”  
  • Problems that did really have an impact on the characters. (money issues for one) 
  • Insta-Fix problems that would be fixed as soon as someone moved to another ROOM. CONFLICT! *flash* Gone. Conflict! *flash* Gone. Conflict? *flash* Gone. 
  • And an ending that I could have seen in any rom-com. If you don’t read the last four pages of this book and not see it playing out on your TV, I’ll give up chocolate. 
Once again, not to say this book was bad. It was what it was, enjoyable. Some things made me tear up, but so does Bridesmaids. Do I think you should read it? Sure! If you like a light chick flick. Will I want to read it again? Nope.

 *I was given a copy of this book from Netgalley and the Publisher for an honest review.

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