TLC Book Tours: The Last Good Paradise by Tatjana Soli

Title: The Last Good Paradise
Author: Tatjana Soli
Format: ARC
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publish Date: February 10, 2015
Source: TLC Book Tours

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "On a small, unnamed coral atoll in the South Pacific, a group of troubled dreamers must face the possibility that the hopes they’ve labored after so single-mindedly might not lead them to the happiness they feel they were promised. Ann and Richard, an aspiring, Los Angeles power couple, are already sensing the cracks in their version of the American dream when their life unexpectedly implodes, leading them to brashly run away from home to a Robinson Crusoe idyll. Dex Cooper, lead singer of the rock band, Prospero, is facing his own slide from greatness, experimenting with artistic asceticism while accompanied by his sexy, young, and increasingly entrepreneurial muse, Wende. Loren, the French owner of the resort sauvage, has made his own Gauguin-like retreat from the world years before, only to find that the modern world has become impossible to disconnect from. Titi, descendent of Tahitian royalty, worker, and eventual inheritor of the resort, must fashion a vision of the island’s future that includes its indigenous people, while her partner, Cooked, is torn between anarchy and lust."

My Two Cents:

"The Last Good Paradise" is the story of a group of people who all seem to be running away from something. The story centers on Ann and Richard. Ann is a successful lawyer who sees her marriage to Richard beginning to disintegrate. Richard is a chef that dreams of owning his own restaurant. Those dreams are dashed and Ann decides that the best thing to do would be to run away from their lives in L.A. to an island where they hope to disconnect from the rest of the world (literally in some ways and figuratively in others) and begin to put their lives and their marriage back together.

Aside from Ann and Richard, there are a lot of characters in this book. Each has their own story and their own reason for finding themselves on the island. All of the characters form somewhat of a ragtag group and they all seem to be trying to find something that they missing within the others in the group. To some degree, I wish that we got a little more insight into the motivations of the various characters. We see that they are running but we don't necessarily get the why other than these characters want this disconnection. Because we don't get to see the motivation, I had a hard time connecting with the characters.

After reading Soli's "The Lotus Eaters," I was very excited to read this book. I loved "The Lotus Eaters" for its insight into what made the characters tick. I wanted more of that in this book. To some degree, this book felt almost as if it was about the idea of being disconnected and sheltered rather than about a story itself. The good writing is still there and still made the book enjoyable and worth a look.

Follow the Rest of the Tour:


Tuesday, February 3rd: Books a la Mode – author guest post
Wednesday, February 4th: Too Fond
Thursday, February 5th: Savvy Verse and Wit
Monday, February 9th: Caribousmom
Monday, February 9th: BookNAround
Tuesday, February 10th: Kahakai Kitchen
Tuesday, February 10th: The Feminist Texican Reads
Wednesday, February 11th: A Bookish Affair
Thursday, February 12th: Writing Whimsy
Friday, February 13th: Books on the Table
Monday, February 16th: The Well Read Redhead
Monday, February 16th: Svetlana’s Reads and Views
Tuesday, February 17th: Lit and Life
Tuesday, February 17th: Kritter’s Ramblings
Wednesday, February 18th: Reader’s Oasis
Thursday, February 19th: Book Dilettante
Friday, February 20th: Olduvai Reads
Monday, February 23rd: 5 Minutes for Books
Monday, February 23rd: Suko’s Notebook
Tuesday, February 24th: Patricia’s Wisdom
Wednesday, February 25th: nomadreader