The most remarkable thing about this book is its choice of heroine. Nine years ago, Tessa MacGuire and Sam Tucker were high-school sweethearts certain they were destined to spend their lives together. But one Christmas when Tessa was away, Sam got drunk and allowed himself to be seduced by Tessa’s jealous younger sister Alli. Alli got pregnant and Sam married her out of obligation; Tessa left town and became a supermodel. So is this the story of how beautiful, betrayed Tessa rises above her disappointment and Learns To Love Again? Not really. Alli is the star of a story that shows how all three characters struggle to move on and forgive each other and themselves.

Nine years have passed since the fateful Christmas, and Alli has discovered that Sam is keeping a drawer full of clippings of Tessa. She still loves him but believes that he has never loved her. So she does what’s best for both of them, if not their daughter, and kicks him out of the house. Tessa hasn’t been home in years, but returns to be with their ailing grandmother Pearl. Alli is certain that Sam still wants Tessa; Tessa never forgave either of them but has unresolved feelings for Sam, and Sam isn’t sure what he wants any more, if he ever knew. Watching everyone process their feelings is pretty much the whole plot, with minor complications from a photographer carrying a torch for Tessa and a semi-hokey quest for a fiftieth wild pearl to complete Grandma Pearl’s anniversary necklace.

In general, I adore books that trust the human interactions of their characters to provide enough interest and conflict to carry the story, but and while I enjoyed this book, there were some problems. The author’s prose style is very clear and simple; sometimes it verges on the simplistic. The characters’ motives and emotions are extremely straightforward – if a character feels jealous, she’s liable to think “I’m jealous, because…” and give a reason why. It would have been even more compelling if the characters’ actions spoke louder than their words, if the reader saw a character’s behavior and concluded “She’s jealous.” This is personal preference; I prefer characterization that comes in layers so dense the reader must unpack them; this book will undoubtedly work better for readers who like their stories satiny smooth.

While Alli and Tessa are well-depicted, Sam is shortchanged in a manner that threatens to undermine the entire book. Sam is the weak point in the love triangle, and ironically, it’s because he always seems like such a nice guy. But it doesn’t make sense that a genuinely good guy would be unable to dig himself out of the mess he’s in and convince his wife that he truly loves her. In a story like this, all three characters should be in a bad place when they begin so we can see how they learn to resolve their problems. While the author allows Alli and Tessa to act like brats, knowing we’ll still like them once they’re over it, there’s no such confidence in Sam. It’s never clear what he needed to change or that he changed it. Sam and Alli both have their ideas of what he’s done wrong in the past, but we only get vague impressions. Sam’s mistakes could all be simply Alli’s imagination, which weakens both of their characters. You know those clippings in his drawer? Grandma Pearl asked him to keep them for her. Not only does that not make much sense, but it makes Sam seem like a hapless pawn. Even his mistakes are not his own; they’re deus ex Grandma.

I liked the unusual setup of this story – the idea that one mistake, even one as big as Alli’s seduction of Sam, does not condemn a person to a life of misery or prove that she’s scheming and evil is a nice change from many more traditional romances I’ve read. While I like my family dramas more complex and my heroes more in touch with their dark sides, Just the Way You Are might just be the right book for times when a nice, easygoing read is all that’s required.