Hi Ladies,
It was a good discussion today and we missed those of you who couldn't make it. For
a book that we didn't end up liking that much... it did stimulate some good conversation!
There were 7 of us present (with one person not having read the book but
came anyway... go Johnnie!!) The range of ratings went from 0 to 2.5 ( with an average of
1.75).
Some of us thought the book was a compelling story at the beginning and
then went down hill and others didn't care for it right from the start. We all
agreed that we wouldn't recommend the book. Much of the problem revolved around
not liking the characters, especially Tucker, the father. We all agreed that
the author did not really develop some of the characters nor some of the parts
of the book and we found that frustrating. He also digressed, at times, for too
long which interfered with the flow of the book and made it boring.
The writing left a lot to be desired and we were amazed that the author is
a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va in the creative writing
department! Goodwin has written four other books "Kin" in 1975 and "The Blood
of Paradise in 2000 and then 2 (little know books) about golf.
Here is a link to an interview with Goodwin regarding Breaking Her
Fall : http://www.harcourtbooks.com/authorinterviews/bookinterview_Goodwin.asp
Much of our conversation was about sexual behavior of teenagers (today and in the past) and whether the
daughter was raped in this particular story. We were ambivalent about a decision
on that. I personally liked the book for its references to the DC metro area
which brought up many memories of my 25 years there. That did not help my
rating, however! Probably the case for Pam B, as well. There was much more but
you kinda "had to be there" as the saying goes!
THE
NEWS
We did make some decisions today, so mark your calendars! Our next
meeting is going to be on March
15 instead of March
8th at it will be a Jonnie's house at 9:30 am. She will provide her
address closer to the date. We also decided to push the May book (Shantaram
..which is a long book) to June and go to see the movie "Great Gatsby" in May
and therefore not discuss a book in May. A review of book list is
below.
The other BIG decision that we
made was at our annual July "party" meeting everyone is to bring 2 book titles
(each from a different genre) that you have NOT read. At that meeting, we will
plan out the following year of books and work toward a good variety and mix of
genres.
Wow... hope you
enjoyed your wine and have a great weekend!
Pam H
