Review: The Vacationers by Emma Straub
An exquisite book about love, family, and the hardships they can bring to our lives
Families are messy. They’re imperfect, they give you grief, they bring you happiness, they can be your worst fears made bare. The Vacationers by Emma Straub explores what’s behind the curtain of a seemingly happy life.
The book opens with Sylvia Post traveling to Mallorca with her parents, Jim and Franny. From the very beginning it is clear that the relationship between the three has been made awkward and the relationship between Jim and Franny has been put in the freezer. They are going to be spending two weeks in Mallorca with Sylvia’s brother Bobby, his girlfriend Carmen, Franny’s gay best friend Charles, and his husband Lawrence. Over the course of the two weeks, members of the strange, mixed, large family will fall in love, fall out of love, learn, grow, fall apart, and be rebuilt.
“Families were nothing more than hope cast out in a wide net, everyone wanting only the best.”
When reviewing a book, I feel it is unfair to hold all books to the same standard. Let me explain. If I’m reading a thriller novel, it might get a lot of points for being fast paced, for keeping me on the edge of my seat, and making me anxious about what’s going to happen next. For a cozy, slice of life, character-driven book, all of those things would make it rank near the bottom of the scale. In that spirit, each genre of book, or at least collection of genres, have their own criteria.
Characters | ✦✦✦✦✦
Throughout the book, the characters felt like people I have met in my daily life. They aren’t perfect, by any means and you might not even like some of them, but you can’t deny that they could easily be any number of people you might meet walking down the street. My favorite character, and I think this might be controversial, is Franny. She’s a good woman in a bad situation and is just trying to make the most of it. No matter what else happened in the course of the book, I just hoped it all worked out for Franny.
“Yes, it was true that Franny had gotten thicker in the last decade, but that was what happened unless you were a high-functioning psychotic, and she had other things to think about. Franny knew plenty of women who had chosen to prioritize the eternal youth of their bodies, and they were all miserable creatures, their taut triceps unable to conceal their dissatisfaction with their empty stomachs and unfulfilling lives. Franny liked to eat, and to feed people, and she wasn’t embarrassed that her body displayed such proclivities.”
Story | ✦✦✦✦✦
Emma Straub has this incredible talent to make the most basic situations feel immersive, engaging, and new. On the surface, The Vacationers is about a large family going on vacation for two weeks to figure themselves out before the daughter goes off to college. At its heart, it is so much more. There is drama and romance and comedy and heart. This might not be a fairy tale, but it’s incredibly real and that’s often even better. What a gift to be able to read a book and feel we are all part of a larger story.
Enjoyment | ✦✦✦✦✦
No matter how well written, no matter how literary or scholarly, no matter how many awards a book has won, if I don’t find myself simply enjoying the book, I have to take that into account when I’m rating it. I found myself wanting to find spare moments to read The Vacationers, wanting to know what was next for Charles and Lawrence, how Jim and Franny were getting on, if Carmen had finally found a way to fit in with the family. It felt as if I was getting the story of a vacation from a friend and I wanted to know every detail. I would happily read more about Franny Post.
Emma Straub continues to be, arguably, my favorite contemporary author. Her stories of real people moving through this messy journey we call life will always be my favorite stories to read. I hope you enjoy your time in Mallorca as much as I did.
Book: The Vacationers
Rating: ✦✦✦✦✦
If you end up loving it try: All Adults Here or Other People We Married, both by Emma Straub