I'm giving this book to my best friend.

books:


	• The Reading Group: A Novel (P.S.) Elizabeth Noble Harper Paperbacks, 2005 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 62 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

I agree a booklover's dream!

What better than women and friendships, and discussing books! The characters in this book went through life, having ups and downs. Starting out as strangers for the most part and ending up looking forward to their discussions about books and sharing their lives.

I loved this book. I don't think we have to like all the characters to love a book though! Since I live in the US, I am unaccustomed to some of the English phrases. Thank goodness I have some friends that are English!

Enjoy this book. I look forward to more books by this outstanding author!

for more information click here

Enjoyable "Gal Pal" book

This is the delightful story of 5 English women who enjoy reading and each other's company. Each chapter centers on a reading group meeting where the book for the month is discussed as well as what's going on in their lives. It's all here--philandering husband, housewife's boredom, unwanted pregnancy, ailing parent, divorcee looking for a new life, infertile woman--the things that happen to women in real life. Through their problems, the women become closer and are supportive of one another in all of these situations. Although they don't always agree with their friends' solutions, they always support them personally. This if fun, light reading and should delight readers who enjoy this genre.

for more information click here

I'm giving this book to my best friend.

She's getting a hip replacement in two weeks, so she can use a feel-good book with a happy ending. As other reader reviewers noted, the book is a soap opera, but there's a time and place for soap operas, and I think a hospital bed is one. Along with long plane flights and beaches.

Lest that sounds as if I didn't enjoy the book, I did, very much, starting it on a recent cross-country plane trip. What I particularly liked was its celebration of women's friendship. In fact, as did two of the book's characters, my friend and I met in a childbirth class when we were pregnant with our first kids. They're 41 now, and we're still close friends!

I'm updating this review, which I originally posted January 4, 2006, to note that my friend -- now fully recovered -- agreed with the reader reviewers who couldn't get into the book or keep track of the characters. Maybe it's the coincidence of a friendship beginning at a childbirth class that appealed to me so much. (In my own novel, A Departure from the Script -- a comic novel about a Jewish mom coping with her daughter's desire for a lesbian wedding -- I found myself inspired by our long friendship. My protagonist and her three closest friends meet monthly for lunch; all four met at a similar class years earlier.)

At any rate, like several other reader reviewers, I find myself "reviewing" the characters' relationships rather than Noble's literary style. That's because friendship is one of the main elements of the storyline in The Reading Group. Boyfriends come and go, feelings for husbands fluctuate, parents die, but the five women who form the reading group become closer and more supportive of each other with each passing month -- even after Claire has moved physically out of reach of the group's meetings. This rings very true to me, perhaps because I'm a member of a writing critique group with five women and similar dynamics. Over the years, we've spent as much time supporting each other through job searches, infertility, care of aging parents and marital difficulties as we have critiquing each other's writing and discussing literary agents. We're not all in the same location now -- but we stay in constant touch through the miracle of email. And when we're able to all meet in person we add the miracle of chocolate.

So I liked the depiction of the reading group very much, and became absorbed in their various problems, even though, as several other reviewers wrote, I had to keep referring back to the list of characters through the first few chapters. But it seemed to me that the various dilemmas were resolved a bit too easily, a tad too tidily. I'm a fan of happy endings -- my own novels end on an upbeat note -- but the various resolutions in The Reading Group fall into place awfully smoothly.

In particular, I found the relationships between daughters and mothers too idealized. Mother-daughter conflicts are a common theme in American novels, as well as in the lives of many women I know. Maybe British culture is different, but it struck me as less than believable that not one woman had a resentful thought or unkind thing to say about her "Mum."

That said, Elizabeth Noble has written a lively, entertaining women's novel, with the plus of structuring it around the book club's discussions of a diverse reading list. I enjoyed the discussions and have added a few of the books I haven't yet read to my "to read" list. This is a book you will want to share with a friend.

for more information click here

Enjoy it for what it is.

This book is an easy read. Fun at times, sleep material at others. There are too many characters and it takes awhile to keep them straight. It's rather frustrating because you lose so much of the story when you have to consult the "cast of characters" to remember who is who. It's a good read if you want to clear your mind of a stressful day and don't want anything heavy. I'd be disappointed if this book were recommeded for my reading club, but all in all, I enjoyed it for what it was.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

Some Captivating Fiction to Take Pleasure in
Chick Lit with some Snap, Crackle, and Pop!
Books at the top of my "To Read" list
Books I Read in 2006
Books to Get Lost In

search for books
group, novel, reading

Impressum / about us