Reviews for The Sand Castle

The average rating for The Sand Castle based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-01-08 00:00:00 Mark Lawler This is a very short book - I completed this literally in about an hour. I've read many of RMB's works and especially enjoyed the first two Runnymeade novels, which IMO are the best. The third, Loose Lips, was a disappointment, as is this one. The length, though, is not the reason - I feel these characters have become mere caricatures of their former selves. If you've read Six of One and Bingo, you know the history of Juts and Wheezy and their personalities. In The Sand Castle, their most annoying traits are set to eleven and left there. Also, and this is a big complaint among RMB's readers, the back story is ret-conned. I won't go into the details and spoil the books, but I will advise this: if you have read Six of One and Bingo and enjoyed them, do not read this one. If you read this first and decide to back track, I think you'll find the earlier stuff better. Getting back The Sand Castle - this is a novella set during an entire day at the Chesapeake Bay. Juts and Wheezy snipe at each other, and Juts's daughter Nickel (Nicole) snipes at her cousin. The story is heavily dialogue-driven and difficult to like if you don't find the characters sympathetic. It hurts to review this because I loved RMB's early works. I wonder if The Sand Castle was an excised portion of an earlier work, or part of a WIP she never finished. Either way, I really think she needs to end the Runnymeade stories before she confuses readers more with rewritten history.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-02-05 00:00:00 Nick James I have not read the other books in this series - I only read this one for a challenge. Julia and Louise take Nickel and Leroy to the beach for the day. That's basically the book. It's from Nickel's POV and there is a lot of dialogue and bickering and gossiping, but other than what happens to Leroy near the end of the book, nothing happens (and what happens to Leroy is merely humorous, nothing big.) Other reviewers have said some of the books in the series were really good, but I can't see wanting to pick any of them up after this one. I listened to the audio version and the narrator was good.