She's Up To No Good

She's Up To No Good by Sara Goodman Confino

Read March 2024

She's Up To No Good

I absolutely loved the first book I read by Sara Goodman Confino, Don’t Forget to Write.  What a fun book that was!  So I was excited to read another by her.  This one is all about a young woman named Jenna who finds out that her husband is leaving her for another woman, so moves home with her parents.  Her grandmother, Evelyn, asks Jenna to take her to the place where she grew up, Hereford, MA.  Jenna agrees in order to get out of her parents house and figures she can enjoy the summer in the small coastal town.  What she doesn’t expect is that she will learn more about her grandmother than she ever thought possible, and, of course, she will find a new lease on life.  

The book takes us back through Evelyn’s youth as a feisty young woman who was determined to do things her own way.  We learn about her first great love and what happened to split them apart.  And through all of Evelyn’s experiences, Jenna learns that she has way more strength (and feistiness) within herself than she had realized.  I LOVED Evelyn - both the Evelyn of the past stories AND the Evelyn of the present day.  What a gal!  

One thing I really like about this author is that she writes in a way that you feel like you get to know the characters really well.  And you also feel the setting of the stories - in this case small town MA, both then and now.  There are truly laugh out loud moments, but then there will be something that comes up and is so poignantly written that you feel tears well up.  I’m impressed by that ability in an author.  I rated this book a 4.5 but it could well be a 5.  

I will certainly read more from Sara Goodman Confino!  

Quotes from She’s Up to No Good...

“You can worry about the small stuff, or you can live your life.  Papa believed in living.”

“She wished that she had found the words to explain to Vivie that it was possible to love two different people in entirely different ways without one being more or less than the other.”

“You can’t let it break you.  Things don’t work out the way you want sometimes, but you have to keep going.”

“I don’t care where we live, and I don’t care what you do.  I care that you’re honest and good and kind, and you do the right thing even when you don’t have to.  I care that you see me.  The real me.”

“I should have thrown my drink in his face.  Let that be a lesson to you.  You get so few opportunities in life to throw a drink.  Take them.”

“Life is complicated and messy for everyone.  It took me a long time to learn that lesson.”