February Book Club Pick Review & March Book Choice
We are on book three of the Mod Woman Book Club, which is crazy. This years is going by fast already. But before I talk about March's book club pick, let's wrap up February's pick. Not Perfect by Elizabeth LeBan, caught my eye because I found the synopsis intriguing: a rich woman with two small kids is left to fend for herself when her rich husband ups and disappears. And while the story was engaging and intriguing I found myself rolling my eyes at every turn. To me this story is more about someone who has lived in a bubble and has no survival skills to speak of. Spoilers ahead if you haven't read the book!
A woman who lives in a house with valuable all around her resorts to stealing food and condiment packets, keeping a list of everything she takes in order to pay people back. Not once does she think about maybe selling the closet full of designer clothes her husband left behind - she gives his gold cuff links to a homeless man at one point. Huh? My suspension of disbelief was stretch to the max on this part of the story. She spends so much time feeling guilty about silly things that she doesn't even notice that her daughter is hurt or that her son is sneaking off and hanging out at a New York coffee shop all by himself (he's seven). While I didn't dislike the protagonist, Tabitha, I found her naive and even a bit dumb. But it does pose a rather interesting question: when you check out of your own life and make it all about your husband what is left when he leaves? For Tabitha the answer seems to be not a whole lot. She takes up with another guy in the midst of her husband's disappearance. I wanted to to yell at her to try being on her own and figuring out who she is before bringing someone else into the picture.
Having said all that - I did actually like this book. Shocker, I know after my mini rant. But it was a nice, easy read. But also infuriating.
March's book club pick is a book that is on my 2018 Must Read List, *4321 by Paul Auster. I am so excited for it! I have a feeling it will be an intense read which is why I wanted to ease my way into it by reading a few lighter books before delving into this one. The synopsis is below:
Paul Auster’s greatest, most heartbreaking and satisfying novel—a sweeping and surprising story of birthright and possibility, of love and of life itself.
Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson’s life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Athletic skills and sex lives and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Each Ferguson falls under the spell of the magnificent Amy Schneiderman, yet each Amy and each Ferguson have a relationship like no other. Meanwhile, readers will take in each Ferguson’s pleasures and ache from each Ferguson’s pains, as the mortal plot of each Ferguson’s life rushes on.
I hope you will join me and read along with this month's pick. If so you can pick up 4321 *here on Amazon!
*This post contains affliliate links.
