The Page Turners

Remember when I started this blog to write about books?  Remember when there was a book club that read the books we picked each month?  The Page Turners had a rough few months.  March and April we had a tough time discussing books because most of us were not reading the books.  We all pledged to do a better job for the month of May.  Everyone attended the meeting.  Everyone read the book.  Only one person did not finish the book.  Not only did we read, we enjoyed the heck out of this book.  Easy Rider was the hostess.  She picked the book, The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood.  This was an enjoyable read.  Unique story line.  Not predictable. 
The story followed two women, Clare and Vivian.  Different generations of women.  Vivian was from 1919, Clare was 1961.  The author rotated chapters back and forth between the two women.  The transition was effortless.  One thing that was interesting was how the two generations were very similar in the treatment of women.  Women were second class citizens.  Vivian was a "kept woman."  She did not seem bothered by this.  She was madly in love with David.  She knew having an affair would make her a shamed woman.  Vivian made the decision easily to have David in her life.
Clare was unhappy in her marriage.  She stayed in a bad marriage because she was afraid that asking for a divorce would make her an outcast.  She was afraid her husband would take their child.  She was not strong enough to fight for a better life.  It was interesting that Vivian from 1919 was the stronger of the two women.  She was not as worried about what people would think. 
After suffering a terrible tragedy, Vivian falls into the job of obituary writer.  She has a unique approach to her writing.  She did not use dates and facts.  She would ask a series of questions starting with tell me about your husband or wife, child etc.  She wanted to be able to have a feeling of who the deceased person was. 
Vivian was a great character.  She was so strong and caring it was easy to want the best for her.  Clare was weak and whiney.  I did not enjoy reading her part of the story near as much. 
Ann Hood did a great job of bringing the story together at the end.  Most or us did not see the end coming.  It was great to read a good book.  We gave it a rating of 4.  There were so many interesting questions to promote a good discussion.  We rated our discussion a 5. 
The only downside to our evening was the restaurant was too noisey.  For some reason Easy Rider always picks the same place to eat.  She just picked this place in 2010.  We are more interested in the books and forget about a little thing called, Thirsty Thursdays.  We are going to need to remember that for our future meetings.  Food was delicious.  Conversation was great.  Nice meeting.