Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is one of those reviews where I am going to receive a lot of unhelpful votes. However, I did not like this book, and feel that as a reviewer, I should be honest and tell you why. Seating Arrangements takes place during the course of one weekend, and is set on a small island off the coast of Massachusetts. It's a special weekend, as Daphne, the eldest daughter of the main character Winn Van Meter, is getting married. Families, friends, and neighbors all travel to the island for the wedding and pre-wedding activities. Most of the story is from Winn's perspective, and is a carefully choreographed series of cliches and stereotypes. Winn is a straight-laced, trying too hard WASP, feeling competition from younger men at the bank where he works, worried about the cost of the wedding, consumed with a golf club membership, loves but is bored with his wife, lusts after one of his daughter's friends--the list goes on and on. All of the characters surrounding Winn are equally shallow stereotypes, making it difficult to engage in the plot. If characters could be said to be indifferent to their own narrative, then that is what we have in Seating Arrangements. Nothing remotely humorous happens in ths book, reading it is like listening to a stilted conversation on a bus for three hours. The plot is dull and unoriginal, the characters are walking cliches, and at times, this is just uncomfortable to read. Don't invest your time.