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"
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.
RSS Feed