It’s too bad that rich-people first-world problems get in the way of such a gorgeous setting. The Vacationers would have been more enjoyable - for me - if there were less emphasis on the angst and more on the place and the food Frannie was cooking for everyone. It seems like a beautiful place, somewhere I’d like to visit some day. It was one I was tempted to abandon however, the thing that really kept me reading was that Emma Straub does do a wonderful job capturing Mallorca in my imagination. Everyone else seems annoying in comparison. They are the most stable couple, the most adult, and therefore the most sympathetic.

That’s not entirely true: the most sympathetic storyline is Charles and Lawrence’s hope to adopt a baby. And because of that, I found myself not caring about anyone. And even though I think the narration is supposed to help readers feel connected to the characters and their problems, mostly I just felt like an intruder. The way the narration works allows us to see into the thoughts of everyone in the vacation house: not just the Post family, but also Frannie’s best friend Charles and his husband, Lawrence, as well as the woman Bobby’s been seeing, Carmen. This book, in so many ways, is so very voyeuristic. A vacation will surely solve all their problems. So they indulge in what has to be a rich-person’s fantasy: they rent a house in Mallorca, an island off the coast of Spain, for two weeks. And their daughter, Sylvia, who is probably the most “normal,” feels a need to reinvent herself. Their 28-year-old son, Bobby, is in a long-term relationship with a much older woman that seems to be going nowhere. Her 35-year marriage to Jim is falling apart: Jim had an affair with a 23-year-old and subsequently got fired from his cushy job at a top magazine. Frannie has hit midlife and is feeling kind of unmoored.

The vacationers emma straub review