Category — Book Club

Do you know what is fun?  Talking about books.  Do you know what could help me out tremendously?  Talking about mine.  (If you’ve ever wanted to give me a gift, this would be what I want.)

Lavender Luz is hosting a book tour for my newest book, Apart at the Seams (thank you!).  Sign up goes until August 1st, and the posts will go up September 4th.  See, lots of time to read the book and join along.  All you need to do right now is click over and fill out Lori’s online form to let her know you’re participating.

Pretty please?  With sprinkles on top?

If you can’t participate, but still want to do something, consider spreading word with a blog post, Goodreads review, Amazon review, or getting an enormous Arianna tattoo across your lower back.  Really, you won’t regret having her face plastered across your skin for eternity.  I am considering getting two of them — one for each knee cap.

On a serious note, an enormous thank you in advance to everyone who is helping spread word.

This question is part of the GRAB(ook) Club, an online book club open to anyone and everyone.  It contains more than a few spoilers for Catching Fire, so read at your own peril.  No, really, stop reading this post if you plan on reading the Hunger Games trilogy.

So, Catching Fire managed to shock the shit out of me at the end.  I’ll admit that I had Hunger Games ruined for me when the press people started sending me Catching Fire movie images while I was reading the first book.  I inadvertently saw who was still alive, and therefore knew who would be the winner, though not how.  Still, I was a little annoyed that it was inadvertently ruined even though the book was still enjoyable.

On the other hand, I went through Catching Fire wondering how the hell they’d get out a second time, and… wow… that ending.  Blew my little mind.  I don’t know why I didn’t consider it, but I didn’t.

I have a push-me-pull-you relationship with spoilers.  On one hand, I obviously dislike them since they ruin the author’s story telling effect.  Catching Fire wouldn’t have emotionally affected me if I knew what was going to happen at the end.  I was thrilled by the surprise.  And, for me, it was that surprise that made the book.  On the other hand, I have been known to sneak onto spoiler sites or read articles that I know will ruin a movie or book.  I also sometimes flip ahead a page or two in the middle of intense action to get a sense of where things are going.  I can’t help myself.  I’m like someone who breathes too heavily next to someone else’s birthday candles.  On one hand, I don’t want to blow them out, but on the other hand, I’m certainly saying a lot of words with drawn-out, heavily inflected “H”s.

You can’t have it both ways.

Do you like spoilers, or do you like to go into books knowing nothing?

And were you surprised by the ending?

After you answer my question, please click over to read the rest of the book club questions for Catching Fire.  You can get your own copy of Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins at bookstores including Amazon.

This is a post for the GRAB(ook) Club. Like the idea of a book club where you don’t have to leave your living room? Then read more about the GRAB(ook) Club which holds the book discussion on blogs, a Facebook group, and a GoodReads group.

This question is part of the GRAB(ook) Club, an online book club open to anyone and everyone.  It contains more than a few spoilers for Gone Girl, so read at your own peril.  No, really, stop reading this post if you plan on reading Gone Girl.

I’ve already written on how I feel about the infertility and treatment protocol plot points.  (For the record, though I’m picking at this book, I really did enjoy it.  The writing is brilliant, the characters well-drawn, the pacing perfect.)

But there’s another discrepancy I found while reading the book: Amy didn’t always act like Amy.

I mean, she acted Amy-ish, but she departed from herself in an enormous way, and I don’t have a good explanation for why.

We’re told that she punished Hilary Handy for some pretty mild transgressions.  She forgot to wait for her after English (twice).  Forgot she was allergic to strawberries (also twice).  So Amy plotted to make her look like a stalker and succeeded in the most brilliant way.

Then we’re told that she punished Tommy O’Hara just a few years before Nick and Amy got together.  After three months of casual dating, he starts to pull away and see other people.  Amy finds out and she pins a rape on him.  Again, an intricate plot that is put into effect pretty much instantaneously.

And then she punishes Nick for his affair with Andie.  It takes her a year to plot it — the year leading up to their 5-year anniversary.  So from year 4 to year 5 of marriage, Amy plots.

Not really acting like Amy.

It’s two-fold: one, Amy is someone who likes immediate gratification.  She executes those other plans fairly quickly — in under a month for at least one of them.  Maybe two months for the other.  And with framing Nick, she is jumping out of her skin to find out what happens after the plan goes into effect.  This is not someone who is detached and calm; she is anxious to see him punished.  So she waits a year?  I mean, yes, obviously waiting a year makes for a more intricate plan, but would Amy — the Amy we know in the book — really wait a year to punish someone?  She wouldn’t rush things along a bit?  She’d keep sleeping next to him, never goaded to speed things along, every time he comes home smelling like Andie?

Fine, I could see a really good plan that takes a long time to set up being intriguing for Amy.  She’s also fenced in by the date of their anniversary if she wants to use that as part of the plan.   But we find out that she punishes Hilary for some very small transgressions: not waiting after class.  I’m willing to accept that in the high school years that could be a big deal.  But with Tommy, she’s an adult.  It’s under two years before she meets Nick.  She punishes Tommy for going out on a date with another girl after they’ve been casually dating for three months.  A huge punishment — rape charges.

But she waits until Nick has an affair, overlooking all the other transgressions that came before that point: being remote, being critical, being thoughtless, being cruel.  Not being the man she thinks she deserves.  Moving her away from New York without allowing her to be part of the discussion.  He pisses her off for years we’re told in the second half of the book.

Why doesn’t she punish him sooner?

Why does she wait for the affair to punish him?

Are we to believe that she loves Nick so much that she’s willing to overlook all those other things that would have pushed her over the edge if it had been another person?  If she is a psychopath, would she understand love in the first place?

In this tiny way, she ceases to act like Amy, something humans do all the time.  We regularly do things “out of character,” hence why humans are unpredictable.  So it wasn’t a deal breaker for me in the book, but I found myself distracted through the second half of the book, wondering why it took her so long to turn on Nick.  Why she acted out of character this one time when it came to doling out the punishments.

What did you think?  Did that seem out of character to you?  Why do you think she waited to punish Nick?

After you answer my question, please click over to read the rest of the book club questions for Gone Girl.  You can get your own copy of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn at bookstores including Amazon.

This is a post for the GRAB(ook) Club. Like the idea of a book club where you don’t have to leave your living room? Then read more about the GRAB(ook) Club which holds the book discussion on blogs, a Facebook group, and a GoodReads group.