Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

December 12, 2019
Host:  Michelle
Attendees:  Lori, Susan, Janna, Ruth, Gayle, JJ, Mary Margaret, Pam T, Pam M




Simon&Schuster:    A profoundly moving novel about two neighboring families in a suburban town, the friendship between their children, a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, the daily intimacies of marriage, and the power of forgiveness.

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come.

Ask Again, Yes is a deeply affecting exploration of the lifelong friendship and love that blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next 40 years. Luminous, heartbreaking, and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes reveals the way childhood memories change when viewed from the distance of adulthood—villains lose their menace and those who appeared innocent seem less so. Kate and Peter’s love story, while haunted by echoes from the past, is marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace

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Thank you Michelle for a cozy and festive setting.  Good company and lively discussion.  The book itself......meh.  It brought out some interesting points but the more we dissected various topics it seemed the novel just came up short.  Most of the reviews seem more effusive and positive than we actually felt the story deserved.   (An Amazon Best Book of June 2019,  Wha?!)  In any event, we had a night full of conversation and thoughtful consideration as we bounced thoughts and opinions off each other.  Mental illness, family dynamics and dysfunction,  immigrant experience, estrangement... just a few of the topics we covered.   We ultimately rated the book 2.75 to 3 (maybe) stars.

Happy holidays all!

Our next selection January 2020:  The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip - Williams

Thursday  Nov 7, 2019

Host:  Pam T.

In attendance:  Lori, Debra, Julie, Susan, Michelle, Pam M.

A quick review from Leisure Commando.com:

A detailed, sorrowful account of the author’s untimely death from colon cancer at the age of 41.  Yip-Williams was born with severe vision problems, and her grandmother insisted that her mother and father have the girl euthanized (there’s no other way to say it) by an herbalist.  The herbalist refused, and the author overcame her handicaps to graduate college, marry, and have a family, only to acquire and die from colon cancer. The book addresses nearly every practical and emotional issue that a cancer patient might have to deal with, with only occasional forays into sentimentality.  The author holds nothing back, and is brutally honest about everything. If anything, it reinforces the notion that you need to live each moment as if it’s your last and cherish the people and things that are important to you while you can.

A cozy, rainy night with seven us (color coordinated, even!) discussing this book and noshing on some delicious tidbits from new recipes thanks to Pam's coworkers.                                          The Unwinding of the Miracle actually began as the author's blog and included letters to her children.   It truly is a story that started with a miracle during infancy and then unravelled and ended far too soon.    Very difficult and tragic subject matter but the author was able to express hopes and joys which came through during some of her  darkest  moments.   The Unwinding of the Miracle was every bit about living as it was a memoir about dying.   We rated it a 3.5 to maybe 3.75.   It did not receive  a "would recommend it to a friend" rating, except maybe with qualifiers.   Although we had various mixed reviews for this book, we unanimously agreed we were not sorry we read it.

Next month's selection is  Ask Again, Yes. by Mary Beth Keane. (Host:  Michelle)

 

Winter Loon by Susan Bernhard

October 3, 2019

Host:  Janna
Attendees:  Julie, Ruth, Pam T., Michelle, Tricia, Amy, Lori, Susan, Emily, Pam M.

KIRKUS REVIEW   

(October 15, 2018)

Bernhard’s debut centers on the ugly cards fate deals to adolescent boy Wes Ballot: poverty, alcoholism, rape, incest, abuse, and abandonment, to name a few.

Living with the pain caused by other people in pain, the protagonist has a resilience that's almost beyond belief—really, it is hard to believe. The novel opens with 15-year-old Wes’ “ear to the ice, alone on a frozen lake surrounded by remote miles of woods and farmland...where the ice had given way and the hungry lake had swallowed [his] mother whole.” The utter bleakness of this initial scene aptly sets the tone for the remainder of the book and showcases one of the author’s most commendable skills: visceral descriptions of the frigid winters in rural Minnesota. Abandoned by his drifter father, Wes ends up in Loma living with Gip and Ruby, his maternal grandparents. The two are a sad and vile pair who blame their grandson for his mother’s death. When Wes asks if God allowed his mother to die, Ruby responds heartlessly: “God wasn’t there, Wes….You were.” Against this emotional backdrop and with no supportive authority to guide him, Wes somehow attends high school, holds a summer job, and falls in love. Bernhard shows that she is not afraid of difficult or touchy subjects, illustrating the prevalence of classism and racism in the lives of the inhabitants of her fictional small town, but she doesn't go beyond the surface in her exploration of systematic prejudice. The problems, like the characters, are underdeveloped. As the novel progresses, Wes uncovers repressed family secrets so horrendous that the reader might find some passages difficult to read.

A coming-of-age story overloaded with tragedy, hopelessness, and trauma.

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Of the 75% of us who read the book, the rating of this book varied from 1 star to 4.5 stars.  There is no denying the dark, painful subject matter was difficult.  To the author's credit she did not graphically portray details; her lyrical and descriptive writing encouraged us to use our own imaginations.  A beautifully written novel about some ugly subject matter and come equally ugly characters, Winter Loon gave us much to talk about.  

November's book:   The Unwinding of the Miracle
by Julie Yip Williams (Host:  Pam T)

  

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

September 12, 2019

The Silent Patient
Host:  Amy
Attendees:  Lori, Mary Margaret, Michelle, Tricia, Pam M, Myra, Pam T, Emily, Janna, Julie, Debra


From MacMillan Publishers:

The instant #1 New York Times bestseller

"An unforgettable—and Hollywood-bound—new thriller... A mix of Hitchcockian suspense, Agatha Christie plotting, and Greek tragedy."
—Entertainment Weekly

The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....

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The Silent Patient gave us a very full night of discussion.  We agreed this was a page turner even if there was often confusion about the overlapping timeline.  The author did a good job of leading his readers on and throwing out a few red herrings along the way.  The author's first profession as a screenwriter confirmed to us that this book would make a good movie;  perhaps it's already in the works.   One of us who shall remain nameless thought Theo the therapist would resemble George Costanza....but most of us thought our imaginary image of Theo resembled the author's picture; which led us to the conclusion the author wrote as Theo.   Our rating was varied from 3.5 to 4.0 with the majority of the group leaning towards the higher ranking.   After Lori's helpful observations and thoughtful insights we agreed she could have pushed our rating to a 5! 

Next book:   Winter Loon by Susan Bernhard  (NOT TO BE CONFUSED with The Winter Loon by Lori Henriksen.  Look for the book with the loon on the cover.   Host:  Janna

8 Aug 2019
MAID by Stephanie Land
Host: Michelle
Attendees: Lori, Amy, Janna, Pam T., Myra, Susan, Julie, Gayle, Ruth, Debra, Pam M.

BOOK REVIEW:
maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land  

Hachette Books    288 pp.

By Jim Swearingen

...When Land became pregnant at 28, she tabled her dreams of a writing program at the University of Montana to raise her daughter single-handedly. A deadbeat father and a resentful boyfriend filtered through her life offering little to no support. Ultimately, to make ends meet, she became a household maid. The companies that employed her provided neither health care, nor a transportation per diem, requiring her to spend more money than she could afford to earn less money than would sustain her small family....
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Our May selection, Maid, due to so many people being unable to attend, became our August book club read. Good attendance and good conversation! Discussions included diagnosing the failures/successes of government assistance programs, observations on family support and upbringings, and poor life choices. We were both sympathetic to the author's situation and struggles, as well as critical of her decisions. 28! 28? 28!? We were appalled by some of the cruelties the author faced. (Don't judge people on what they are purchasing when in the checkout lane!) We came away with the agreement that it's always better to be kind; one never knows the battles someone else is fighting....and we all could easily be only one paycheck away from disaster as well. We felt grateful to have had family when we needed, and being able to provide family and support to our own children.
Our informal (loosey - goosey) rating system ranged from a 2 to a 4 so overall this book ranked 3 stars.

We selected our next six month's selections. See the list by clicking on the tab Our Future Selections under the blog heading.
September:
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
(Amy)

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
April 11. 2019
Hostess:  Janna
Attendees:  Myra, Lori, Lisa, Michelle, Pam T.,  Debra, Allison, Cheryl, JJ, Susan, Emily, Amy

Book Summary

Winner of the 2018 BookBrowse Debut Novel Award

How long can you protect your heart?

For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens.

Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.  (source:  www.Bookbrowse.com)

We had an excellent turn out for this book; quite a festive gathering complete with delicious shrimp and grits,  and cornbread to enhance the theme.   Thank you Janna!   Lots of discussions and a general good time.   Did we actually rate it? ***** If nothing else it received high marks for a terrific Thursday evening!

Next month's book:   Maid  by Stephanie Land

The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea

March 14, 2019

Host:  Pam M
Attendees:  Cheryl, Janna, Allison, Michelle, Susan, JJ

The House of Broken Angels

The House of Broken Angels is, in fact, a party. Also a funeral. When the novel 

opens, Big Angel de la Cruz, the patriarch of a sprawling Mexican-American 

family, is getting ready to bury his mother, and to die. 

(First sentence: "Big Angel was late to his own mother's funeral."  

He's in the late stages of terminal cancer, and so he gathers 

his relatives for a weekend-long doubleheader.  Saturday, funeral.  Sunday, his

last birthday party  .........    The House of Broken Angels overflows with the pleasure 

of family.   You wouldn't be wrong to take this book as a rebuttal to Tolstoy's happy-family dictum. 

I'm not saying the de la Cruz family is perfect. Its members struggle with addiction, 

exhaustion, alienation, frustrated ambition. One is married to a woman who might 

be a demon. One spends the whole funeral and most of the birthday party outside 

in his car, too stubborn and afraid to come inside. Everyone is grieving, Big Angel 

most of all, and yet this is not a novel about grief. It's a novel about how amazing it 

is to have been alive.   (March 7, 2018   NPR Book Review)

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This wasn't the most favorite book we've ever read, but seemed to be a book which,

 once we dissected it a little,  found there was more to appreciate, if not like about it.  

We learned that this novel was based on the author's true experience of his 

half-brother's death.  If nothing else, we were introduced to Luis Alberto Urrea, 

a Mexican-American poet, novelist and essayist who has more than a dozen 

published works and several literary awards.

We ultimately rated it about 3.2  stars ***

Next month's selection is Where the Crawdad Sings by Delia Owens.

The May book is  Maid by Stephanie Land 

This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel

February 7, 2019
Hostess:  Susan
Attendees:  Lori, Amy, Janna, Cheryl, Pam T, Allison, Michelle, Emily

  *KIRKUS REVIEW 9/2016*

A big, brave, messy modern family struggles with the challenges of raising a transgender child.

“This is how it always is. You have to make these huge decisions on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands, who trusts you to know what’s good and right and then to be able to make it happen. If…you make the wrong call, well, nothing less than your child’s entire future and happiness is at stake.” Claude Walsh-Adams is all of 3 years old when he announces what he wants to be when he grows up—a girl. It’s a particularly tricky case of “be careful what you wish for” for his doctor mom and novelist dad, already the parents of four boys when they roll the reproductive dice one last time. At home, barrettes and dresses are fine, but once he starts kindergarten as a boy, Claude becomes so miserable that, with the advice of a “multi-degree-social-working-therapist-magician,” his parents decide to let him become Poppy. “So, gender dysphoria,” says the bizarrely bouncy therapist. “Congratulations to you both! Mazel tov! How exciting!” The excitement takes a nasty turn when horrifying homophobic incidents convince Rosie that the family must leave Madison, Wisconsin, for the reputedly more enlightened Seattle, Washington. But rather than putting Seattle’s tolerance to the test, they keep Poppy’s identity a secret from even her closest friends, a decision that blows up in their faces when she hits puberty. Though well-plotted, well-researched, and unflaggingly interesting, the novel is cloying at times, with arch formulations, preachy pronouncements, and a running metafictional fairy tale. It’s worth putting up with the occasional too-much-ism for all the rest of what bright, brave author Frankel (Goodbye for Now, 2012) has to offer as the mother of a transgender second-grader in real life.

***Interview with Laurie Frankel on NPR (1/2017)***

This novel was inspired by the author's own experience as a mother of a transgender child.   As thought-provoking a domestic novel as we have seen this year. what she hopes readers will get out of her book:"I think it is a topic that scares people and I think that in part that's because they haven't met anyone — or they don't know that they've met anyone — who is impacted by these issues. There are a lot of transgender people and there are even more people who are gender nonconforming, and these little kids are just kids. They are the least scary people you can imagine.
So one of the things that I hope is that people who read this book will read it and forget about the transgender issues and just be in the embrace of this family and realize that this family is like all families: They love and they keep secrets from one another and they protect one another and they struggle with how to do that and they have these challenges. And it's hard, but it isn't scary and it isn't abnormal at all."

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The subject matter of this novel was uncharted territory for our book club.  It was our first time to read about anything having to do with transgender issues.   Lots of discussion on multiple related topics! As much as this story focused on one boy-girl,  the common plot was was very much about family, and the dynamics resulting from the transgender point..more clinically known as gender dysphoria.   All in attendance read the book,  (that may be a first for our humble little book club)  A book well liked, we gave it a 4.1 star rating! 

Next month March 7:   The House of Broken Angels,  by Luis Alberto Urrea

Hostess:  Pam M 

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

Thursday January 10, 2019
Happy New Year!

Attendees:  Amy, Myra, Lori, Janna, Pam T., Pam M., JJ, Kris Anne, Cheryl, Michelle, Debra
Host:  Allison

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate




What a nice kick off to our first book club night in 2019.   We were amazed that we've been getting together for nearly twelve years now,  and have discussed such a variety of books since our inaugural meeting in 2007!

 That cake..... don't forget to check out the recipe page!

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BEFORE WE WERE YOURS  from Penguin Random House:

THE BLOCKBUSTER HIT—A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller

For readers of Orphan Train and The Nightingale comes a “thought-provoking [and] complex tale about two families, two generations apart . . . based on a notorious true-life scandal.”

Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shanty boat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.

Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.

Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.

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We were ultimately horrified and touched by this story.  And the fact that it was based on truth and practically in our backyard made it that much more riveting.  This novel brought up some thought-provoking subjects:  social class and what defines happiness, adoption, ancestry, DNA testing, orphanages, and cousins marrying cousins,  to name a few!  

We were definitely interested in what made Georgia Tann the evil person she was, and discussed her background.  (thank you Wikipedia)

Overall we rated the book a FOUR PLUS.

Next book selection for February is This is How It Always Is, by Laurie Frankel.
Host:  Susan