BIC book club!

[prettyinpa]

Some of us here have expressed an interest in a book club, myself, @mermadelove, @LCResz, @ZombieMetroAnt, @Mcakes. If you'd be interested in joining, reply below. My initial thought was to mail the books around but if it means that some people can't participate, then I'm all for dropping that requirement. I'd love this to be a place where we nominate our favorite book and others can read it and comment. Something fun for the new year!  ETA: the booklist:

1. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (16)
1. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (16)
3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (13)
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (11)
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (11)
4. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (11)
7. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (10)
7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (10)
7. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (10) Discussion begins 8-13.
7. The Wedding Dress by Rachel Hauck (10) Discussion begin 9-2.
11. The Fault in our Stars by John Green (9) Time to discuss 9-26
11. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (9) Now discussing below.
11. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (9)
11. What Happened by Hilary Clinton (9) Now discussing below.
11. Fall of Giants by Ken Follett (9) Start reading now.
11. The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Ashford (9)
11. milk and honey by Rupi Kaur (9)
18. A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (8)
18. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (8)
18. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (8)
18. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (8)
18. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence (8)
18. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (8)
18. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (8)
18. The Paper Magician by Charlie Holmberg (8)
18. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (8)
18. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (8)
18. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (8)
18. The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory (8)

Participants in spoiler

Spoiler

Participants:

PrettyinPA

AlexaSteph

Beadshopgirl

LCResz

Kim888

SoBeautiful

Fatimamummy

ZombieMetroAnt

PalomaFoster

k617

bakeamuffin
Susubee
Skcfan
Lazybeautybeast
SpaceLlama
greeneyedgirl107

Mermadelove
Mcakes
Aaliaa
Serenely
Myinsidevoice
MissPuff
juliehnguyen
lmi82
Knowledgebeauty
Titian06
quspork
darlyndar
KellW
misscg
EuniceO
Elles117
ClassicallyFab
ShiraBT
melanito
Heylady14
ChicagoEngineer
Imightneedthis
PrettyPaint
rachface2921

[Lazybeautybeast]

I felt the same way! I loved the writing style. I found it easy to read and enjoyable....until the end. The last chapter or so fell flat for me. I think I would have stopped it shortly after the Richardson's found the portraits.

[heylady14]

I agree! I enjoyed the book and thought it flowed well until the end. It sort of felt rushed and inconsistent with the rest of the story/writing. I wonder if it will get modified as this gets translated for film/TV.

[tsavorite]

To add some balance to this discussion:

I hate to say anything critical about the way the book was written, but, here goes. There was one little thing that I thought was a little "off" for me in the writing of the book.  When the mother and daughter left town at the end, that she had prepared an artistic souvenir for each person in the family, in advance of their leaving, that was perfectly meaningful for each person, seemed to me too much a device of the author, and took me out of the story to wonder at it.  I don't expect anyone to agree with me, but this caught my attention.

[skcfan]

@tsavorite I might be remembering incorrectly, but wasn’t Mrs Richardson insistent that Mia take family portraits for them, and Mia made a remark about something like people not liking how she portrayed them. I assumed that the gifts were the “portraits” that Elena was kinda begging for, so Mia worked on them a bit before the move.

[tsavorite]

@skcfan,

You are probably right!  I have forgotten.  I will have to see if I can find that passage.  That would set a better background for the personal artwork that Mia gave each of them.   I think that would make me feel somewhat better about reason for the gifts.

[PrettyPaint]

@tsavorite I did question this addition as well. It didn’t seem entirely true to Mia’s character to me (by leaving the gifts, she seemed to be passing a bit more judgment than I would have thought based on other parts of the novel). It seemed more planned and formulated than I would have expected, particularly given the urgency of their departure at the end. In some ways, I think I may have understood the gifts a bit more if additional context and detail about the photos and her perspective were provided.

[tsavorite]

@PrettyPaint,

That's exactly what I thought about the gifts.

[tsavorite]

I really enjoyed this book as well.  I found it easy to get into and easy to read because it was interesting.  I will be looking into the other book by this author.  I also liked the way we were shown so many characters' points of view.  On my own, without this Book Club, I might not have picked this book to read, but once I started reading it, I would not have put it down.  I have been glad to recommend this book to friends. 

[Lazybeautybeast]

Same here. I never would have picked this book for myself but I enjoyed it. Thank you for recommending it! 

[Titian06]

@tsavorite - I love your new HOF Pusheen-itar!

I agree with what everyone else has been saying:  well written, the use of multiple points of view, interesting from the beginning, good character development, etc.  This is the first book I've read in a long time where I didn't fall asleep after a few paragraphs or pages.  I've already promised the book to two other people.  Interestingly (to me anyway), the mother of one of them grew up in Shaker Heights.

[tsavorite]

@Titian06,

Thank you! 

Have you seen that Celeste Ng also grew up in Shaker Heights?  There is a little video of an interview with her for her first book, on Amazon, "Everything That I Never Told You."

[mermadelove]

Well color me stupid @tsavorite @Titian06  I had NO IDEA it was a real place!!!! Any idea if it is really the way she painted it??? In other words ' high suburbia??" 

[tsavorite]

@mermadelove,

You are not stupid, you just don't live in Ohio!   🙂

[prettyinpa]

It really is high suburbia, I did an art show there and it was full of trendy places to eat, I had a heck of a time finding an actual grocery store for eating staples, it's like they expect everyone to eat out.

[mermadelove]

@prettyinpa That’s kind of mind blowing!!!

[Titian06]

@mermadelove - You're not stupid if you don't know!  Yes, it is a real upscale city on the east side of Cleveland.  I believe it started as a planned community that was developed by a railroad tycoon in the early 1900s.  Eventually it was incorporated into a city.

[mermadelove]

@Titian06 Now I'm going to google it! 

[Titian06]

@tsavorite - Thanks, I've been meaning to read her bio to find that out.

[skcfan]

I really liked it! One of the things I enjoyed how it was set in the late 90s, so everything felt familiar yet still very different in many ways.

I also think the author has a wonderful way of showing each character’s perspective. So, It wasn’t so easy to “pick a side” (although I eventually did...) because I could see the views and motivations from all the characters so well.

[RachFace2921]

I totally had 90s nostalgia too @skcfan!  It was a nice source of levity in a story filled with heavy and complex topics.

[mermadelove]

@skcfan  I really loved that about the book too! I think that if we all were able to see each others' perspective like that IRL things would be  a lot smoother. YOu know that saying "There's two sides to every story?" Well, this book showed there's more like TWENTY!