Lynda C. (Readnmachine) reviewed on 1/24/2024 + 1440 more book reviews

There's a pretty long-standing trope in women's fiction wherein four or five long-time female friends get together at some critical point in the life of one or more of them, and -- usually with the help of a great deal of wine -- solve each other's problems so that everyone lives happily ever after.

Carr is undeniably dusting off this reliable formula in "The House on Olive Street", but she handles the story with such panache that it pops and bubbles and turns left almost every time the reader is expecting it to turn right.

Five women, writers all, have had a long-standing friendship that is shaken when one of them dies unexpectedly, charging the eldest member of the group to handle her literary affairs and sort out her personal effects. What starts out as a sad obligation grows into a combination scavenger hunt to reconstruct an unfinished autobiographical novel and a "crazy women's summer camp" as circumstances push one group member after the next into taking up residence in the house on Olive Street.

Things look like they might get terribly predictable and just a wee bit sappy about three-quarters of the way through the book, but Carr still has a few plot twists up her sleeve and manages to create a satisfying ending without getting mawkish about it.

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