The Reading Group: A Novel (P.S.)

published	2005 by Harper Paperbacks
binding	Paperback
isbn	0060760443 (isbn13: 9780060760441)
pages	464
description	The Reading Group follows the trials and tribulations of a group of women who meet regularly to read and discuss books.Over the course of a year, each...more [close] The Reading Group follows the trials and tribulations of a group of women who meet regularly to read and discuss books.Over the course of a year, each of these women become intertwined, both in the books they read and within each other's lives. Inspired by a shared desire for conversation, a good book and a glass of wine-Clare, Harriet, Nicole, Polly, and Susan undergo startling revelations and transformations despite their differences in background, age and respective dilemmas. What starts as a reading group gradually evolves into a forum where the women may express their views through the books they read and grow to become increasingly more open as the bonds of friendship cement. In The Reading Group, Noble reveals the many complicated paths in life we all face as well as the power and importance of friendship.
date added	01-31-07 edit book

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Khaya rated it:

07/14/07

I really need something light and fluffy now, but this book is giving me ADD. I just hope it turns out to be better than "Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons"...

Update: OK -- now I must rant.

Complaint #1: I have nothing against middle-aged or any other kind of chick lit. However, I feel that chick lit by definition should be both light and short. This book was neither. I found the process of reading it slow, and the book was way longer than it needed to be.

Complaint ...more I really need something light and fluffy now, but this book is giving me ADD. I just hope it turns out to be better than "Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons"...

Update: OK -- now I must rant.

Complaint #1: I have nothing against middle-aged or any other kind of chick lit. However, I feel that chick lit by definition should be both light and short. This book was neither. I found the process of reading it slow, and the book was way longer than it needed to be.

Complaint #2: This author tried to take on topics that were too big for her, and then dealt with them in a superficial way. I felt that even her choice of complex scenarios was clicheed -- sandwich generation, midlife crisis, finding the courage to finally leave an unfaithful husband, teen pregnancy, etc. All of these topics have been done to death in literature, and she did not bring any original twists to them. If you're going to write about hackneyed situations, at least make them a little unique by varying the circumstances and/or the characters. But not only were these situations and everything about them clicheed, they were dealt with very superficially.

Complaint #2a: I think that some of the problem was that there were too many characters and situations for Noble to delve deeply into any one of them. Basically, I feel she bit off more than she could chew both in terms of the situations themselves, and in trying to write about all of them in one book -- especially since this was really meant to be chick lit. I do think that chick lit can have deeper themes; e.g., "I Don't Know How She Does It" managed to pull off a light, breezy, and often funny tone while simultaneously offering a very real and complex exploration of the conflicts of a working mother. However, the genre is limited in its ability to remain light while exploring these themes and chick lit authors need to be realistic about maintaining that balance. Basically, this book was trying to be both a light, breezy chick lit book and a deep, complex exploration of psychologically significant situations. It ended up being neither of those things.

Complaint #3: Although this book was ostensibly about the book group and how their relationships/interactions gel, there was actually very little focus on the group qua group. It was more about the individual women and their particular situations, occasionally including interactions between women who were friends before they joined the book group. I didn't get any sense of women who ordinarily wouldn't have met being thrown together and interacting in this setting, and how their relationships developed.

Complaint #4: Dialogue needs to include occasional indications of who's saying what, not to mention visual details, especially if the dialogue is taking place among four or five people! During the actual book club meeting interludes, brief and sporadic though they were, you could never tell who was saying what about the book. In this way, the author missed a great opportunity for characterization and for executing the ostensible theme of the book (i.e., the connection between the literature and the characters' personal issues).

Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest, and if you're still reading, I thank you for your patience!...less

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Izetta Autumn rated it:

07/12/07

bookshelves: 2020-tome, general-fiction

Read in July, 2007

I would have said simply, that this is a book best for a summer read, when you've run out of the books that are "serious literature," and that it would be an escape. There are a few laugh out loud moments - a wife desiring that her husband be shanked while he waits outside a gas station bathroom for her. But the other jokes, I don't think are actually intended to be funny - like the way grown womyn over 35 behave and the now cliche dramatization of harried housewives of a certain means...more I would have said simply, that this is a book best for a summer read, when you've run out of the books that are "serious literature," and that it would be an escape. There are a few laugh out loud moments - a wife desiring that her husband be shanked while he waits outside a gas station bathroom for her. But the other jokes, I don't think are actually intended to be funny - like the way grown womyn over 35 behave and the now cliche dramatization of harried housewives of a certain means.

Let me start with what I appreciated. As a member of a book club I liked that many books were discussed - many of which I'd now like to read. I also appreciated Noble's realistic portrayal of book group dynamics - there's always an assertive one, someone more mild, someone who never reads the book and likes to socialize. This I found funny and even enjoyable as I compared it to my own reading group. Too, the idea that two different friends with drastically different marraiages interact is a level slightly below interesting. And that's where it ends for me.

I like a good no-need-to-think-too-hard novel just as much as the next person, but the way in which womyn are portrayed in this novel unsettles me. I would have dismissed this if one of the major protagonists (spoiler coming don't read if you don't want to know part of the ending) has an abortion after conniving to get herself pregnant to make her man stay. The plot then delivers a wolf in sheep's clothing dissection of abortion, with which I have serious issues because it ultimately intimates that abortion is bad for womyn because they will be wracked with guilt (and other womyn, namely your friends, won't approve.) While that could be realistic for some communities and interesting to build upon, the complexity (though the author tried) is missing.

For this reason and the number of characters it's necessary to follow, the dialogue which doesn't always flow (this could admittedly, be me as an American reading a Brittish novel), and the sheer length, make this not my number one pick for a lazy summer read. Instead, I would suggest a Sophie Kinsella novel - full of good laughs, completely unrealistic, and no abortion themes (as yet) that disservice womyn. The protagonist may be immature (this is in fact why we love her) but she's at least checked in her fantasies....less

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The Reading Group: A Novel (P.S.)

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