I probably wouldn't have finished it but the back cover made it sound like a mystery and I wanted to find out what happened to Ellen. Well there was no mystery and no real plot or story. Just an overall depressing book. A down and out 20 something guy is looking for a break from his dead end life so he takes a summer job caring for an elderly woman at the beach in Maine for the summer. She is a little more crazy than he knew in the beginning. Meets a girl but she is not as into him and cheats on him. Old lady ends up in the hospital. He gets beat up, no one in the town seems to really like him, and he almost drowns at the end. No real story, no real resolution of his issues from his mom's death or how to get his life together. Just depressing and nothing good happens anywhere in the book.
