This was our November pick, and most of the members thought it was good, but not great. A common comment was that it needed more action - they kept waiting for something to happen. It was a good snapshot of the time period, and a window into the lives of the people at that time.
Someone mentioned that they also just read City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert, and that they were very similar - she kept mixing up the two! More than one person said they just didn't care about the characters, that women's roles in the 1930's were very restrictive choices. Our discussion led us to a conclusion that while the characters in the story were well fleshed out, the relationships felt strange. Perhaps a male author doesn't fully understand complicated female relationships and how deep they can be? Photography is a key theme, and the extra information about the subway photo series was very cool to look at on the author's website. As for the title, while the Rules of Civility acts as Tinker's moral compass, Katey is really the primary character in the book. It made for a strange title. After our virtual meeting, a member commented that even though most of us didn't love the book, the discussion was a really good one. There was a lot to discuss, and everyone participated. I've noticed this over the years - sometimes our favorite books are comfortable but not very discussion-worthy. It's the books we struggle a bit with that hold more to really discuss and debate over.
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We read Persuasion for our October meeting as our classic choice for this year's club. I think we were all expecting to enjoy this as much as we enjoyed Pride and Prejudice a few years ago, and we didn't. More than half the members struggled with this book. Some tried audio and that helped, some watched the movie. I suspect that this choice was not so much a bad book for book club as maybe a bad choice for a quarantine/Covid/2020 book. This year it feels like we need stories that grab us and hold our attention like never before.
We were so lucky to have the author join us for a zoom call in September to discuss this book! She was lovely and talking to her added to our enjoyment and discussion of the book! This book with themes of family, faithfulness in relationships, priorities, sisterhood, forgiveness, and growing into the person you are meant to be is a great book club choice. The author's depiction of summer and holidays in New England was charming and the characters were relatable.
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January 2022
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