Book Review: "A Mile in My Flip Flops" by Melody Carlson

With a freshly broken heart, Gretchen Hanover swaps her wedding plans for home improvement shows---she's going to flip a house! But when the place turns out to be in worse condition than she realized, her retired contractor father needs help and calls in carpenter Noah Campbell. A whimsical look at building relationships and renovating hearts!

If you are a fan of the HGTV channel, you will love this book. I myself have only watched a couple episodes of some of the shows, usually while I'm channel surfing. My mother became a fan of the channel after staying with us one weekend and proceeded to watch over 5 hours straight of shows. This book focuses on the art of house flipping, where a person buys a house usually in disarray, renovates it completely and then goes back and sells it to make a profit. Gretchen seems to make a rash decision to pursue a dream of becoming a house flipper and uses up most of her savings to buy a decrepit house. Unfortunately things don't go as smoothly as she had planned. Pretty much everything that could go wrong goes wrong. While it probably wouldn't have been amusing to Gretchen, reading about her adventures was enjoyable and a hoot at times. I learned A LOT about not only house flipping but also the basics of renovation and upkeep. It was pretty much like reading an episode of one of the HGTV shows.

Gretchen's initial reaction to Noah is, while understandable, a bit put offish. I didn't like how she assumed that just because he was divorced, that meant that he was bad at making commitments. She didn't know the situation yet she was wrongly blaming him. However once the two finally settle their differences, they have excellent chemistry that is really fun to watch. Even better is when Noah's ex-wife comes on the scene which throws everyone for a loop. Another part of the story I liked was Gretchen's relationship with her father. I enjoyed reading about the two of them and especially her willingness to have him be involved with her house flipping plans. It's good to read about a father -daughter relationship, when no mother is involved, that's managed to stay pleasant and close throughout the years.

If you're looking for a fun read to end the summer with, grab this book. It's lighthearted chick lit with a dose of learning about learning who the ultimate fixer-upper is. Melody Carlson's books have the power to take me from whatever I'm doing and draw me right into her books. Whether it's one of her YA books or her edgy adult fiction or like this book, fun chick lit I always know I'm going to be in for a good read.

A Mile in My Flip Flops by Melody Carlson is published by Waterbrook (2008)