WHEREVER I CHOOSE

This has the elements of an unusual and a fine book. Somehow it just misses fire, although it has a good deal to recommend it. The central character, Birgit, a ""native"" of a resort community in northern Michigan, falls for the blandishments of one of the summer residents, and breaks her heart over his defection. On the rebound, she marries an advertising man in whose office she works, and brings their marriage to a smash through her inability to remain true to him. Ultimately, a return to the peaceful background of her childhood home brings with it a new sense of values. Birgit does not ring true. She is now an unsophisticated country girl, thinking herself a rebel; now a rather spoiled young opportunist, bitten by the ""city bug""; now a wife whose life falls in lines of frivolity and romantic adventure. It is difficult to place her either in class or period. She never comes alive. And yet the problems of the story are real ones, and well handled. Not as sound a book as her earlier Seedtime and Harvest.