Beach Read

Gus acts as both a romantic interest and a foil to January. Unlike January, his upbringing wasn’t perfect and magical. Gus’s father abused Gus’s mother and Gus. Gus’s wife left him for another man. He has faced rejection after rejection, causing him to have a cynical and bleak outlook on life. January observes, “No one had chosen Gus. From the time he was a kid, no one had chosen him, and he was embarrassed by that, like it meant something about him” (195).

Gus’s appearance is described as tall, “all sharp cheekbones, furiously dark eyes, and the leanly muscled arms of a gravedigger turned novelist” (39). January says he’s “stupidly, infuriatingly attractive” (37). He has a crooked mouth and dark, curly hair. He is often disheveled looking, wearing rumpled clothing and letting his hair do whatever it wants.

Despite his cynical outlook, Gus is much more emotionally intelligent than he lets on at first. He can read January’s emotions and respond to them directly without her having to tell him much. He can tell she is different from who she was when he knew her in college. When Gus allows himself to be vulnerable with January, the reader gets a feel for the tenderness he secretly harbors. He tells January that he dreamed of running away to live in a treehouse as a kid. January feels “life had beaten him into a permanent slouch, folded him over himself so no one could get at that soft center” (185).

Gus grows to be more optimistic, or at least to be comfortable enough showing his optimism to January. Even though he seeks out darkness for his novels, he explains that he’s always hoping to find something: “Like proof. That it isn’t as bad as it looks [...] Like if we added up all the—all the shit and all the wildflowers, the world would come out positive” (294). In the end, Gus chooses to be gentle with January and to let her into his softer interior world.

Pete is the owner of the bookstore and coffee shop in North Bear Shores. She has lived there for a long time with her wife, Maggie. She is Gus’s maternal aunt. Pete is described as late-middle-aged and has “a gruff voice to match her blonde crew cut” (29). She is warm and inviting upon meeting January, expressing, “We’re all family at Pete’s” (29). Pete and Maggie live in a pink house with several Labradors. They host a weekly book club where members discuss spy novels.

As the book progresses, Pete is revealed to be Gus’s closest family and protective of Gus. She and Maggie took care of him as a child, taking him on vacations and giving him respite from his dad’s abusive behavior, and Pete helped Gus buy his house in town so that she could keep him close to people who love him. Pete is instrumental to the plot’s development, first introducing January and Gus, then inviting them to her book club, where they begin to spend more time together, and finally revealing Gus’s marriage to Naomi, leading to a deepening of the relationship between Gus and January.

Shadi is January’s best friend. Her story is told mostly through texts to January. The two met in a pizza shop bathroom because January loved Shadi’s boots. They attended college together before Shadi dropped out to work as an au pair. Shadi and January are very close emotionally despite the fact that Shadi now lives far away with several roommates. They have inside jokes and nicknames for people, especially men. Shadi works in a kitchen, where she met her romantic interest, The Haunted Hat (real name Ricky). She develops her relationship with him over the course of the novel. Shadi is bold and unafraid to pursue people she’s interested in. January describes Shadi in love as “even more herself. Even wilder, funnier, sillier, wiser, softer” (229), and “open[ing] up like a rose to expose the most tender, pure, selfless, and loyal heart I’d ever known” (337).

Shadi is also shown to be impulsive through a flashback to a frat party where she shaves her head in the bathroom and gets herself and January kicked out. As someone familiar with January’s college life, her communication with January about Gus provides a lot of insight to January and Shadi’s history as well as who Gus was in college. Despite the distance between them, Shadi goes to January when January needs her most. In person, Shadi is a nurturing figure, helping January clean the house and making healthy food for her. When January runs outside to meet Gus in the rain, Shadi applauds her decision enthusiastically, showing support for her friend.

January’s father is a complicated character. Though he does not change throughout the book, as it takes place after his death, January’s perception of him does. His character develops through January’s eyes, from a loving and loyal father to a lying adulterer, and back to a complex yet loving figure whom January gains a new appreciation for. January’s dad is a conflicted character, shown to have a deep love for his family despite his long-term affair. His love for January is evident in the way she finds her books and newspaper clippings around his second home and in the way that Sonya knows so much about January. Her dad took January on day-long boating trips, just the two of them, and took January and her mother dancing to help take the family’s minds off her mother’s cancer diagnosis. He is supportive of his family, taking care of January’s mom and encouraging January to pursue her love and passions.

Ultimately, his heart is good, but January must deduce this for herself through the pieces of him she has left. Her memories of him are stained by the revelation of his affair, so it’s his postmortem letters that help her to learn who he is and feel ready to accept him again. The letters, written every year for January’s birthday, detail January’s dad’s life and emotions watching January grow up, having an affair, falling in love with Sonya, and falling back in love with January’s mom. He is wise and ultimately wants January to make up her own mind about him, which is why he leaves her the letters and the lake house.