Challenging Family Lives

We were a small core group of the final 6 tonight. A first, dinning on paper plates, and disposal cups, oh my. The food theme was Russian, and we dined on baked Brie, spinach casserole, spinach salad, fresh beets, and noodles with beef stroganoff. For dessert a delicious blini with several fruit fillings. We dove right into the books, The God of Small Things, up first. We all read it and it got a 2 stars. We all thought the writing style was too sing-songy, and got in the way of the read. The way the story jumped around too much was also distracting from the story. Some of us couldn’t care about the brother and sister, and found not many of the other characters likable either. Several of us thought the author dragged us along, building up suspense for too long about what would happen to Sophie Moll, and when she died, it was much ado about nothing. Since this book got so many great reviews on line, we were all surprised how little we cared for it. The next book, Stalin's Daughter, was only finished by 3 of us and 1 read through about half way. It got 3 stars. One person, stopped reading because it was too much like politics in today’s climate, and too upsetting. Those of us who finished found Stevlana a sad person, strong and weak at the same time, but definitely a victim of the era where women had few opportunities, and a victim of her being Stalin's Daughter, which she could never escape her entire life. We thought there were many similarities between Stalin and Trump. We discussed how she acted impulsively her entire life, but particularly when defecting, and surprised she returned 14 years later to Russia and how tragic it was she was rejected by her 2 children. Her love of her third child we thought kept her alive. The next meeting is at Kathy’s on March 31.

The future schedule follows on May 12 (in need of a host); June 23 (in need of a host); August 4 (Helene?), September 15 (need a host) October 27 (need a host) and December 8 (need a host). Do we want a standard rotation or leave it up to volunteers to fill in these dates?

Books selected for next meeting include: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee and Miller's Valley by Anna Quindlen.

Link to our site: https://lhunt04.wixsite.com/east-bay-book-club