I am in a book club and have been in a few over the years. Ranging from clubs organized by Barnes and Noble to groups of neighbors or friends, book clubs can be a way to meet new people, talk about books, and just get out and eat and drink without your kids. Wine is often a must at these things.
Book clubs always seem like a good idea to me. However, I often am frustrated by being "forced" to read a book that was not even on my radar, let alone my To Be Read list. But, usually I'm happy after I get pushed out of my comfort zone for a few months. It opens my eyes to all the other books I would just be happy to ignore. And, there is something really motivating about reading with a deadline.
This month, my book club picked The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell. We run a system that whoever is hosting book club gets the privilege of picking the book we all read. The friend who picked this book said that it was recommended to her by a friend of a friend. High praise, indeed.
Jewell recounts the saga of a family from a small town in England. She uses flashbacks and flashforwards to reveal bits and pieces of what happened to the parents and four children in the Bird family, all taking place on various Easters.
I was intrigued by the cover. The cracked egg hints at the destruction of a safe place. But I had no idea how bad it would get.
This book is well rated on both Amazon and GoodReads and honestly, I was surprised by this.
I'm a fan of complicated stories with dark twists and turns (that's often how real life goes). I don't need a saccharine tale, but this was a bit over the top. It was like nothing good happened for the first 3/4 of the book. Something bad happened and then something worse and then it got even more strange and upsetting. I didn't cry despite all the sad/difficult situations...I didn't feel a particular affinity to any of the characters.
It seems like much of teen fiction is dystopian and much of pop fiction is train wrecks. the more popular books I read the more I wonder why we are eating up these bad stories. In classic fiction, there are many hardships and deaths and war but somehow there is hope or human perseverance that makes them beautiful. Modern fiction seems to be centered on cautionary tales ("don't become a hoarder, or else...") or something that is a stark contrast to most people's lives so we can say, "Ah, thank goodness my life isn't that bad!" I just can't seem to get on board with this trend.
Ultimately, if I were looking for some shred of hope in this book it would have come just past page 300:
"'This is real life. And things sometimes happen that don't fit in with how we think the story should go, but we just have to take a deep breath and get on with it, not sit there sulking because it's not what we were hoping for. Come on!'"
It's true, but it's not really well done. And, I don't know how "real" the life described in this book is for most families. Sure, everyone has a few stories and some hurts and some hardships, but this reads like a Jerry Springer-esqe family memoir.
Jewell did a great job of describing England and I loved the setting and descriptions that she wrote. This novel would have been impossible without this, because the mother is a hoarder and her condition gets gradually worse throughout the book. I really felt the walls closing in on me and the clutter of the house because of the way their home was described. The book made me curious about the hoarding condition and made me reevaluate my book buying tendencies because if I were going to hoard anything, it would certainly be books.
If you're looking for a strange and kind of dark book, this one may fit the bill. If you're interested in life with a hoarder you should give it a shot.
Next up I'm reading Madame Bovary and A Prayer For Owen Meany. What are you reading?
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