My book club book seems to be an anti-abortion screed....

[LisaM]

I don't think the person who picked it even realizes it (or will realize it). It's called "The Mothers" by Brit Bennett, and it's a first novel.

Hell, I don't even know if the author realizes how anti-abortion it is.

I am beyond pissed. I'm ANGRY.

[TexasProgresive]

1. How often does your club meet?

Be sure to voice your impressions of this book, and let us know how the discussion goes. Has your club read the Handmaid's Tale? That might be a good counter to the present book.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Looking at the reviews, while some of them

mention the fact that the main character has an abortion, none of them seem to find it that anti-abortion. Can you say a bit more about why you find it that way?

I haven't read it, and after looking at reviews, both by those who loved it and those who hated it, I'm not at all inclined to pick it up.

[LisaM]

3. The entire plot revolves around an abortion, and its aftermath, so to speak.

Granted, it's got all the millennial triggers - parent suicide, other person raised by a single parent, sexual abuse by a stepfather, abandonment, and a gay sister. But I absolutely can't get past the judge-y abortion stuff.

The women in my group have read "The Handmaid's Tale"; they're all lapping it up on Netflix at the moment. The problem isn't so much that they are conservative - they aren't in the least. My actual issue is that they won't see this as an anti-abortion book!

I'm a bit older than most (not all) of them, and maybe just have a more liberal view of it. I don't consider a three-week old batch of cells a living being. In this book, everyone does!! If there had been any character development (which there isn't), I'd say that all the characters had been poisoned by this one act.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. Interesting.

The very vast majority of women who have abortions never regret them.

Some years back I read a book (can't recall author or title, and an attempt at a Google search doesn't turn it up) in which a young woman gets pregnant and then we see two different versions of her life in parallel: one where she has an abortion and goes on to have a decent career, marry, have a couple of kids; and the other in which after going to a crisis pregnancy center is persuaded to have the baby, which she does and decides to keep the daughter and raise her alone.

In this book, what clearly comes out is how the young woman's life narrows incredibly when she has the baby. The father is totally out of the picture and she has to do it all by herself. The other life is by no means perfect, and toward the end there's something bad that happens -- I can no longer recall what -- which clearly would not have happened had she not had the abortion.

Really wish I could recall the name or author.

[LisaM]

5. It's not a particularly well-written book anyway.....

it's the usual kind of book that passes for literature now, where the character development is non-existent and the people all seem totally passive and victims of circumstance - look, I get that we aren't all dealt the same hand, but in the last 20 years or so, characters in books have been dumbed down so much that they sound like test cases in an article out of "Psychology Today".

The main character's mother committed suicide before the book begins. Her absence of character is really the largest character in the book, but the (young) author elected to take out the mother's backstory for no reason that I can fathom. Even the mother's death is informed by this abortion that takes place about nine months after she dies.

I want to cut the author some slack because she's so young, but then I think about a book like "This Side of Paradise", written when Fitzgerald was younger than Brit Bennett, and, as flawed as TSOP is, the characters still jump off the page about 100 years later.

Not so in "The Mothers".

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. Thanks again for sharing this.

One thing I've learned over the years is to be very wary of books that have become huge best sellers, because those are the books that the people who only read one or two books a year pick up precisely because of the hype.

It seems as though people who read so little are just not that picky about good writing.

One of the best things I've taken up doing is NOT finishing a book if it's not holding my attention well enough. So many books, so little time. And I read about 80-100 books per year.

[LisaM]

11. On a good weekend, I read 4 or 5 books.

Granted, I re-read a lot. I probably read 300-400 books a year.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. Woah! I'm impressed.

I do occasionally reread a book, and of course it's always faster on the reread than the first go-around. But rereading is a pleasure.

[LisaM]

17. Yes, and there are a few I cycle through each year...

The Lord of the Rings, all of Jane Austen, all of Barbara Pym, and the Anne of Green Gables books. I also generally have a book on the Salem Witchcraft trials going, as well as an author biography. I just fit all the others in.

[LuckyLib]

6. I've gotten to the point where I peruse the chosen book, and will often decide that

it's not worth it. So I don't read it and don't go to the event. Life is too short.

[LisaM]

7. I don't mind reading a bad book and trashing it - I read fast - and I like my friends.

However, I think that some of them just phone it in when they pick a book. They go by reviews or buzz or topic or subject matter, rather than carefully reading and choosing books that have literary merit or that would at least make for a good discussion (we are each supposed to submit three books at the beginning of the year, then we vote).

(As examples of "phoning it in" crap, I give you "All the Light We Cannot See", "The Book Thief", "In a Dark, Dark Wood", and "The Secret History". We're adults, fer Chrissake!)

[LuckyLib]

8. I hear you. I had to form a two-person book group with a friend so we could read

something of substance. Can't waste my time left on drivel!

[LisaM]

9. I have to ignore the book part, in general.

We have read some good books here and there. And, I told myself a long time ago, I joined a book club to read stuff that was more mainstream than I usually pick (otherwise, I probably would have read about 10 books written past 1950). Occasionally, I'm pleasantly surprised. I thought "Wild" would be the worst book I ever read and it wasn't; I actually liked it. It kind of made up for the absolute terribleness of "Sea Biscuit I" (about a horse) and "Sea Biscuit II" (about a horse who was a POW in Japan, aka "Unbroken&quot .

[pansypoo53219]

12. book club. hell, i rebelled in a college class. reading assignment.

i DID read jack karoak(sp) on the road. BLEGH. but then tom wolfe's druggie book and i could NOT hack it. i don't do drugs, reading it was almost as bad.
bonfire of the vanities much better.

[LisaM]

13. I think "On the Road" has one of the most beautiful last lines ever written.

"....... I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty."

Absolutely gives me chills.

Curious as to why you were taking a class that assigned books that you hated? I have nothing against "Bonfire of the Vanities", but I don't think it's college-level literature.

[Phentex]

14. Book clubs are strange beasts...

When it's good, it's really good. But more often than not, it's a pain in the ass. I do get lots of ideas during the formal nomination process so that's a plus for me.

I am the only real leftie of the bunch. They don't know what to do with me at times. But I think they keep me around because I really READ when so many of them bail.

[LisaM]

15. We're pretty liberal....

my problem is that I'm one of the few English majors, so I am very very picky about the literary quality.