First off, thank you so much Valerie for hosting this month's Book Club/Happy Hour! The food and sangria were fabulous! The weather and setting couldn't have been better! The book, however, could have!
There are only two words to describe this month's choice of books and those are EPIC FAIL! Of the 5 of us who read the entire book (including Cindy but I didn't get her rating) and 2 who read half of it and
couldn't stand to read the rest, Cheap Cabernet - A Friendship, got an overall rating of 1.5. Needless to say I won't leave my book choices up to the reviews of NPR and Kindle readers again!
Even though no one liked the book, we actually had a pretty good discussion about it. After filling everyone in on what the book was about, it didn't sound quite as bad as it actually was. We all agreed that,
this being a true story, Cathie Beck could have written a very good book about her life, her friendship with Denise and the hardships of dealing with and having Multiple Sclerosis. Unfortunately, she just threw
a bunch of stories from her life in the book and didn't really follow through with any of them, leaving us confused and frustrated. For example, she and Denise had gotten into a big fight towards the end of
Denise's battle with MS and they hadn't spoken to each other for some time. Denise called Cathie out of the blue to come meet her sister that she had spoken so much about, Cathie never picked up the phone
or returned Denise's call. The next chapter has Denise's husband handing Cathie a baggie of some of Denise's ashes. Frustrating! The use of the F-word in every other sentence turned me off in particular
and made it hard to focus on what was actually being said.
On the other hand, as Valerie and Pam mentioned, there were a few good stories in the book too. Cathie's struggles as a very young single mother and what she had to do to feed her children were very real.
Also, her trip to Jamaica/Cuba with Denise was written so that you felt like you were there with them, the people they met and places they went were interesting and vivid. For example, when Cathie and
Denise were leaving Cuba, their host Fidel who they had had such a good time with and who knew that this was Denise's last trip due to her MS, wiped his face with the back of his hand as they hugged good bye.
Very vivid and touching.
An interesting fact that I read in Cathie's interview at the end of the book is that when she saw the Columbine shooting on TV, it prompted her to write this book about her extraordinary friendship. It is
true that she and Denise had an extraordinary friendship but we also felt it was a bizarre and unhealthy. Like Deb said "who doesn't go to your best friend's funeral?"
Other than a couple of good stories, the only other good thing that I can say about this book is that part of the proceeds went to the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation. :)
Housekeeping notes:
August Book Club discussing Fall of Giants will be held on August 19th at the coffee place on Mainstreet at 9:30am. We switched it from the 12th due to college move in week.
Everyone would like to see the movie "The Help" which comes out on August 10th, does the 10th, 17th, 24th or 26th work for anyone?? Let me know...
Have a great day!
Laura
