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Beach vacation has its challenges Breezy Going
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Published: September 14, 2008
RITES OF SPRING (BREAK): An Ivy League Novel. By Diana Peterfreund. Delta Trade Paperbacks. 356 pages. $10.
It's Amy Haskel's final semester at Eli University, and she should be trying to figure out what she wants to do after graduation. But there's always something that crops up to keep Amy from concentrating on such mundane matters as schoolwork and career plans. And, also as usual, the ultraexclusive campus secret society to which Amy belongs, the Order of Rose & Grave, is smack in the middle of it.
In Rites of Spring (Break), the third book of Diana Peterfreund's Secret Society Girl series, a war of pranks with a rival society takes an unsettling personal turn for Amy when she becomes a target for retribution, making each trip to class or the dining hall a stressful (and potentially sticky) experience. And then there's the emotionally confusing return to her life of her ex-boyfriend, Brandon. He's got a wonderful new girlfriend, so why does he want to hang out with Amy again?
It's all very disturbing, so Amy is thrilled at the opportunity to escape the cold, dreary winter of New Haven for the warm beaches of Cavador Key, Rose & Grave's remote private island in the Florida Keys. She could really use a week or so of carefree bliss in society luxury, sipping pomegranate cocktails, reading and sunbathing to her heart's content.
But there are more than a few problems with her expectation of an idyllic vacation. The boat ride to the island becomes a trip of terror for the water-phobic Amy, and the society retreat turns out to be more campground than resort. (No electricity after 10 p.m.? They have to ration showers?!)
To Amy's horror, the White House chief of staff -- a society patriarch with whom the current class has a contentious history -- is also on the island with his family, hiding out from the media-frenzy fallout of a scandal. On top of that, the island is under constant surveillance from conspiracy theorists camped out on a nearby key within binocular distance. At least there's one pleasant surprise there to help cheer her up: one of her favorite society members, her big "brother" Malcolm, fresh off several months in Alaska.
And then the pranks start happening again, except this time not just to Amy. Do they have a malevolent trespasser on the island? Does the rival society have something to do with it? Or is it one of the society members, current or former? Perhaps more disturbing to Amy, why are her feelings for her one-time society nemesis, Poe, becoming less antagonistic and decidedly more ... warm?
Rites continues the fun, breezy tone of the first two books in the series, but it unfortunately doesn't live up to its predecessors in the mystery department. Despite the presence of several red herrings, the culprit is far more obvious to the reader than to the heroine, an unfortunate danger in mystery stories; her obliviousness frustrated me and made me long to somehow enter the story to make her wise up.
And even though the stakes seem more personal, with Amy in immediate danger several times, the impact is somehow less than the society-at-large dangers of previous installments. After all, the fact that Amy is telling the story afterward rather lessens the suspense of whether she'll make it off the island in one piece.
Still, fans of the series should find it enjoyable to catch up with the entertaining-as-always Amy, her romantic turmoils and the other society members on the way to next summer's series-concluding novel.
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