The Original LitChicks kicked off August by reading one of the original Oprah's Book Club choices "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb.  This coming-of-age story follows Dolores Price from her pre-teen days until her mid-40's, as she continuously battles against depression.  For many of of us, this was not the first time reading (or attempting to read) the book.  The club seemed split on how we like the book. For some, it only rated 2 stars due to it's constant barrage of depressing events and a heroine who isn't easy to like.  Others gave it 4 stars, saying the admired the heroine tenacity and the quality of writing.  One of the few things we agreed upon was that for a book that is praised as one of the most realistic protrayals of a woman, some of the events felt very far-fetched.  If you go to goodreads, you'll see the reading community at large is as split in it's opinion of this book as our book club.  It's definitely an acquired taste.

The New LitChicks ended the month reading "The Wives of Los Alamos" by TaraShea Nesbit.  This story follows the daily lives of the families (centering on the matriarchs) who first populated Los Alamos, New Mexico during the Manhattan Project.  This was a very timely pick considering that August marked the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.   The author chose to employ the tricky first-person plural point of view for her narrative*.  For many members, this served as a distraction from the actual story.  The strength of this book was how it inspired many of us to want to learn more about Los Alamos and the other parts of the Manhattan Project.  

As I finish typing this up, I realize that while our two groups chose two very different books, our selections both told stories about the inherent strength of women - or in the words of the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, "Females are Strong as Hell"

*Another example of first-person plural POV is "The Buddah in the Attic" by Julia Otsuka, a book on Japanese women who came to the United States as picture brides just prior to World War II.  This was a LitChicks book choice in 2012. 

This summer has been eventful for the LitChicks.

In June, we met to discuss "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro.  I would say that most of the members were either familiar with movie it inspired (starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson) or with Kazuo Ishiguro's other book "Never Let Me Go" (which those members highly recommended).  The concensus on this book was that while it was beautifully written, it wasn't able to overcome the lack of any real plot.  Members were very consistent on goodreads, giving it 2-3 stars.  

The big news coming out of our June meeting was that we decided to launch a second branch of the NoVA LitChicks.  If you pay attention to our website you may have seen our post about it.  There was stellar response to this idea, both from our current membership and the general public.  We were able to fully fill a new club by the middle of June, and set a launch date of July 22nd.

Our original group met in the beginning of July to discuss "The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in The World" by A.J. Jacobs.  Only a few people managed to finish it.  I think most were turned off with a book that mostly regurgitated encyclopedia entries.  Those who had read and enjoyed some of his other books agreed that this was not his best effort (although to be fair, this was also his first book).  Once again, members were fairly consistent in giving it 2-3 stars on Goodreads.

Finally, the New LitChicks met in late July to discuss "The Housekeeper and the Professor" by Yoko Ogawa.  It was a great meeting.  Conversation constantly flowed even though we were all strangers at the beginning of the meeting.  It is a sign of great things to come.  We agreed that it was a charming and sweet book.  While the book does refer to math a good deal (the Professor is a math professor after all), it was not overbearing.  Several ladies noted that they would have liked to see the past relationship between the Professor and his sister-in-law more fleshed out.  

Overall it was a great start to the summer.  In August, we will be reading "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb (original LitChicks) and "The Wives of Los Alamos".