November - Winter's Bone

I so wish I could tell you we had a great conversation about this book because there is so much to talk about in it but we had a couple of people be able to make the meeting that we haven't seen in a few months and we spent way more time catching up than talking about the book. That's what happens when your book club members become friends!

We didn't entirely forget that we'd read a book. We talked about the book versus the movie (and agreed that the movie is a great adaptation although Mary Beth felt like some of what got left out of the movie would have made the movie even better). We talked about how good the writing is in this book, although we got off topic (again!) before Linda could read some of what she'd bookmarked. We talked about the violence in the book and how that is both easier to read than watch and how it is not.

Imagine how much more we would have talked about the book if Lisa S had just pulled out her notes and wrangled the group into talking about the book better!

October: LaRose by Louise Erdrich

To get our discussion going for this book, we played a version of Jeopardy which allowed us to talk about the characters, the events of the book, and the lives of Native Americans.

Ann was a big fan of the book...until the end, which she was really disappointed in and she was not alone. We did find it curious that the book ends with its focus on a different character than any of the characters which were in the forefront of the novel to that point.

We talked about the violence in the book including Landreaux's shooting of Dusty, Maggie's attacks on boys who were trying to molest her and LaRose's attempt to get revenge on those boys, and Peter's attempt to kill Landreaux. We talked about the weight the children carried - LaRose having to go back and forth between homes, Maggie and LaRose who have to try to keep Nola from committing suicide, Romeo's son who is raised by Landreaux and his wife because his father is unable to raise him.

Interwoven into the current story are the stories of the LaRoses before this boy but we felt that, despite much being made of the importance of these prior LaRoses, only one of them really got any attention. And there didn't seem to be a connection between this LaRose and those.

Despite some reservations about parts of the book, we still had a really good discussion about this book, which is actually the third book in a trilogy but can be read independently.

September: Educated by Tara Westover

This is what happens when you don't keep up with the book blog - I can't remember talking about much this book. Which seems odd because I know we had a good discussion about it.

 We did talk about which of the parents were most culpable for the damage done to their children - the father who was clearly not right minded or the mother who seemed aware that things were wrong but always backed her husband. We talked about Westover's parents always siding with their son who was abusing Tara, making excuses for his behavior. We talked about Westover's mother's business which made her the real breadwinner of the family and how she still deferred to her husband. We were all astonished by Westover's ability to pull herself out of her circumstances and her unwillingness to acknowledge that the Mormon faith was partially to blame for what had happened to their family.

We would definitely recommend this book for other book clubs.