Freud's Mistress by Karen Mack

 

Club Rating:  3.3

 A story of seduction, betrayal, and loss.  After being dismissed from yet another position as a lady’s companion, Minna Bernays sheepishly moves in with her older sister to help run the household and take care of Martha’s six children while Martha’s husband, Sigmund Freud, is refining a set of psychological theories.  Inspired by the supposed affair between Sigmund Freud and his sister-in-law, Freud’s Mistress combines the glamor of high-society Vienna and the squalor and scandal of the servant class.

A lot of discussion was around the roles of the women and men - the men wanting something they couldn't have, the woman being convenient.  The lack of morals put some off but, this exists today that there are women who have a price an are ok with turning a blind eye to what their husbands are doing.

Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult

Club Rating:  3.5

Cara and Edward's parents, Luke and Georgie, are divorced. Luke, a renowned wolf expert, frequently lives with wolves. Cara adores her father and doesn't feel she fits with her mother, Georgie's new family. Edward has had a falling out with his father and lives in Thailand.  An car accident brings this estranged family back together.

Picoult writes with a formula that works in this book. She introduces a conflict early on - Luke is in a coma and should they or shouldn't they unplug his life support. Some of us felt compassion for the wife and some for Luke. Luke was singularly focused and humans were a distraction, We had a very interesting discussion about following your calling/passion vs. responsibilities.

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

Club Rating: 3.7

Nora has many obligations in life with caring for her mother, then her father and ends up as a teacher. She befriends this family and is enthralled with first the son, then the husband and then the wife. She visits them in Paris and again redefines her viewpoints. She is looking for love or something to define herself with and the books ramblings showed this. She is a self ostracized individual who wants to be viewed as a 'woulda/shoulda/coulda'. It is very introspective and philosophical. She is a very talented author.

Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Club Rating: 3.9

Tom Sherbourne has miraculously survived World War I and finds himself in a small town in Western Australia seeking work as a lighthouse keeper. He meets Isabel, who becomes the love of his life. They begin a romance, marry and move to the isolated lighthouse, Janus, where they hope to start a family.

All agreed that the author does an amazing job of bringing the characters with all of their flaws to life.  You ponder choices and their consequences and how complex every decision is.  Some felt that the script was formula.

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

Club Rating: 4.3

This short novel is reminiscent of The Road by Cormac McCarthy in that it is in a post apocalyptic world and has beautiful sparse prose that takes a bit to get used to . It is also sad and funny. The characters have wonderfully complex layers.

Most of the members felt it was beautifully written and the nature and beauty he clung to were clashing with the ugliness of the world that he lived in.  There were parts that dragged.  We loved Bangley, Hig and Jasper.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Club Rating: 4.5

These short stories capture the difficulty in transitioning from Indian to American culture as well as so much more.  Most of us said that we typically don't enjoy short stories but enjoyed this book.  The author does a wonderful job of capturing the cultures.  This was a very enjoyable read with wonderful writing.

Keeper of the Light by Diane Chamberlain

Dr. Olivia Simon is on duty in the emergency room of North Carolina's Outer Banks Hospital when a gunshot victim is brought in. Midway through the desperate effort to save the young woman's life, Olivia realizes who she is—Annie O'Neill.

The woman Olivia's husband, Paul, is in love with. When Annie dies on the operating table, she leaves behind three other victims. Alec O'Neill, who thought he had the perfect marriage. Paul, whose fixation on Annie is unshakable. And Olivia, who is desperate to understand the woman who destroyed her marriage. Now they are left with unanswered questions about who Annie really was. And about the secrets she kept hidden so well.

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler

Club Rating: 1.9  
Eve Ensler's tour into the last frontier, the forbidden zone at the heart of every woman. Adapted from the award-winning one-woman show, this groundbreaking book gives voice to a chorus of lusty, outrageous, poignant, and thoroughly human stories, transforming the question mark hovering over the female anatomy into a permanent victory sign. With laughter and compassion, Ensler transports her audiences to a world we've never dared to know, guaranteeing that no one who reads The Vagina Monologues will ever look at a woman's body the same way again.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

This is about the intersecting lives of the men and women who produce a newspaper—and one woman who reads it religiously, if belatedly. Although the chapters clearly intersect, it reads like a short story.  In the opening chapter, aging, dissolute Paris correspondent Lloyd Burko pressures his estranged son to leak information from the French Foreign Ministry, and in the process unearths startling family fare that won't sell a single edition. Obit writer Arthur Gopal, whose overarching goal at the paper is indolence, encounters personal tragedy and, with it, unexpected career ambition. Late in the book, as the paper buckles, recently laid-off copyeditor Dave Belling seduces the CFO who fired him. Throughout, the founding publisher's progeny stagger under a heritage they don't understand. As the ragtag staff faces down the implications of the paper's tilt into oblivion, there are more than enough sublime moments, unexpected turns and sheer inky wretchedness to warrant putting this on the shelf next to other great newspaper novels.

Club Rating: 3.5

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow

This debut novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy. With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white.

Club Rating: 3.7

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Alice Howland - Harvard professor, gifted researcher and lecturer, wife, and mother of three grown children - sets out for a run and soon realizes she has no idea how to find her way home. She has taken the route for years, but nothing looks familiar. She is utterly lost. Medical consults reveal early-onset Alzheimer's. Alice's slowly but inevitably loses memory and connection with reality, told from her perspective.

People could relate but also understood that at a certain point, this disease goes so far beyond what we can relate to.   How horrific to understand you have this disease and there is nothing you can do.  This disease is harder for those around you. 

Club Rating: 3.4

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

When college student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating.  The unworldly Ana realizes she wants this man, and Grey admits he wants her, too—but on his own terms. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian’s secrets and explores her own desires.

Some hated it, some enjoyed it.  All agreed that it is a fluffy beach read.  The difference between a quality romance novel  and this book is, this book is "story, sex, story, sex, story, sex", there was no natural progression towards the sex like romance novels.


Club Rating: 3.0