Since this doesn’t get emailed out to anyone anymore, I guess I don’t really need to comment on what day it is, but old habits die hard so thank you for your patience.
This is going to be a quick post, as it’s late-ish on a Monday night and I’m tired, but I didn’t do this yesterday and wanted to get it done before I forgot everything about our book club meeting this past weekend. We discussed Where the Crawdads Sing, which, if you read my last post, you know I didn’t enjoy. Well, we had a nearly full house on Saturday and everyone finished and liked (but not necessarily loved) the book. The first thing one member said when asked what she thought of it was, “Well, I certainly had to suspend my sense of disbelief”, which I think was the problem with my reading. I thought this book was supposed to seem credible, but if I’d realized that it was a modern-day fairy tale, I may have been able to get through it with fewer issues. Most everyone said they were immediately drawn in and the story held their interest to the very end. One member said it was a slow ride, not gripping, but a gradual build. Everyone found the character of Kya fascinating, and we all thought she was brilliant, that she represented untapped nature in its purest form, and Tate embraced and nurtured this "nature" while Chase aimed only to dominate and destroy it. Kya’s isolation was both prison and freedom, and her interactions with Jumpin’ and Mabelle, while her only social interactions other than with Tate or Chase, had limitations that both she and society placed on them. We talked about so many other things, and had a wonderful discussion. One member said that they thought this was the longest discussion we’ve had about a book in ages, which I think is true. They thought it was a great choice, and I agree that it has plenty of talking points and is a great book club selection, so if you haven’t read it or are looking for a book for your book club, I think I can safely recommend this title.
I also just finished a wonderful teen novel, Family of Liars by E Lockhart. This is the prequel to We Were Liars, which I listened to as an audiobook sometime in the past year and really enjoyed. Here’s what I said about the first novel last October:
“And speaking of coming-of-age novels, We Were Liars by E. Lockhart also focused on a group of privileged teens who spend their summers on an island privately owned by one of the teens’ family. But this summer is different for reasons that are slowly revealed throughout the novel. Something has clearly happened, but what? And who, if anyone, is at fault? This was another novel that deals with actions and their consequences, and I loved this one, too.”
I couldn’t give much away about that book without spoiling it, and the same goes for this novel, which looks at the teen’s parents when they were just teens themselves, and what has shaped them to be a family of liars, where the lying began and why. If you love novels filled with family secrets and hidden pasts, then these two might be good choices for you. But I want to caution you to read the original book first and the prequel after, as it contains spoilers.
That’s all for now. Happy Reading and Happy Fall!
Bye for now... Julie
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