Flight attendant, Summer Benson is on top of the world. She has a career that she loves and she has just discovered that her handsome pilot boyfriend is planning on proposing to her in Paris. On the flight to Paris, their plane has mechanical problems and Summer survives a crash landing. While recovering in the hospital her boyfriend, although apologetic for his rotten timing, tells her that surviving the crash has made him revaluate his own life and he realizes that he doesn't love her. Summer is crushed and is left to do some soul searching of her own.
Just prior to the crash, Summer read a small article in a travel magazine about Black Dog Bay, a small beach community in Vermont. Black Dog Bay is not only beautiful and welcoming, but it plays up its reputation of being a town that helps visitors recover from their broken hearts. Having nothing else to lose, Summer decides to spend a few weeks in Black Dog Bay to see if she can get her life back on track.
Looking for the ultimate summer chick-lit/beach read? Look no further, Beth Kendrick's Cure for the Common Breakup is it. It's cute, sweet and sappy. It has some nice themes of friendship and grabbing life by the balls. It's easy to root for Summer. Even the characters that are supposed to be difficult to like, are kind of endearing. This is a gentle story that is entertaining, yet doesn't require much effort on the part of the reader, making it a great vacation read.
It's the light tone of the story, that makes some of the over-the-top creativity when it comes to the town, forgivable. The inn is called the " Better Off Bed and Breakfast", the bar has a jukebox that only plays break-up songs, the owner of the local boutique arranges clothing on racks according to the grieving stages of a broken heart...every business in town plays on the gimmick. If the book tried to be too serious, this would have come off as ridiculous. Instead, I felt that it was a seaside community that was quirky in the way that the town of Stars Hollow is quirky on Gilmore Girls. I can buy into that fantasy world.