18 January 2016

The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble

I read this book in December - last year.

I was too exhausted mentally to write my thoughts about the book. So I decided I will take it up later.

The story is about a group of women - friends - who have formed a reading group, discussing a book every month. It is essentially about their lives obviously, more than about the actual book reading, but then, that is fine by me. However, the book hopped, skipped about so much from one character to the other that it was highly distracting. The main characters plus their spouses/boyfriends/daughters - too many people and too much importance on everything.

It seemed like the attempt was to make it more substantial than what it actually was. In a way, it was worse than being a plain chick-lit.  What I mean by that is, the issues faced by the characters were not serious for me as a reader to care about. I admit that the author very deliberately wanted to keep it that way, and that is fine, so as to not make it dreary, but it just didn't push me enough to feel for them. I know, I am being extremely harsh here. And I hope she does not mind. Perhaps these things happen in the debut novel.

Throughout the book I kept wishing the same story could have been said in a crisper form. I guess I am being the fussy one here, asking for too many things..


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