Better late than never?
I’ve been a member of a book club for about 8 years but have been putting off writing a post here as I’m not quite sure how to start – my book club usually begins with us eating cake and having a half hour chat about Who Weekly, reality TV and what we had for dinner, none of which would be appropriate here. The thought of putting my thoughts about a book down in writing feels like submitting an essay, and I didn’t much enjoy doing them when I had to. But after procrastinating for 2 months, here goes….
A friend of mine described ‘Addition’ as being a high end chick lit book, and after reading it I agree. Essentially the storyline was the pretty typical Mills and Boonish girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy back again (unlike a M & B however ‘Addition’ had no pirates or brooding European counts). Having said that, it also had a lot more to it than just the pretty straightforward storyline. I found the whole OCD/ mental health issues stuff really interesting, and something you don’t really see much of in novels. Someone close to me has OCD and in the past I worked in mental health for many years, so I found what Toni had to say about mental health, the role of medication, family issues and past experiences as contributing factors to personality/behaviour pretty interesting. She wrote so convincingly I wonder if she or someone close to her has OCD – or maybe she’s just a very good researcher. Regardless, I really empathised with Grace, and have since stared counting how many bristles my toothbrush has. Not quite, but I do now notice that the average scoop of my breakfast muesli has 7 pieces of apricot in it. I do wish I had posted sooner after finishing the book, as I am struggling to remember other themes and bits that had an impact on me.
One of the main things I loved about the book was reading something not just set in Melbourne, but set only a few k’s from where I live. I kept trying to work out which supermarket she went to etc. I’ve really enjoyed reading Toni’s columns in the Age, and I do so love it when a local person makes good.
OK, given this is the first blog post I’ve ever written I think I’ll finish here and handball the discussion over to someone else. Is 4:22 too early to reward myself with a glass of wine? It IS school holidays, after all.
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[...] is still open on our first book, Addition, so please feel free to follow this link to the post Katya put up and add your thoughts in the comments. It would also be great if you [...]
Sounds intriguing! Sorry to be obtuse but is there an obvious spot where the next book coming is posted?I think I’ve missed Addition- by the time I read it you’ll be onto the next one.
I haven’t been a member of a book club before, so I’m really glad you were able to put together such a great initial post for our first book. I’ve had it ticking around in my head since reading it but haven’t been confident to put my thoughts up.
Positioning the book as “high end chick lit” fits, I think. I hadn’t really broken the structure down to the M&B formula, but one you expressed it as such it clicked. My only argument would be that there kind of is a mysterious count: Tesla.
Your thoughts on the mental health aspects are interesting. Without having had that background, I felt sometimes that the decision to have a main character with OCD was jumping on the “Curious Incident…” bandwagon, where I found it more engagingly handled. Of course, Christopher – as a young British boy – probably has the “exotic” advantage over a Melburnian woman approaching middle age, awkwardly! (Close to home, perhaps…)
If I treat it as a novel, I found it an engaging enough read, but at the same time found it rather unsatisfying in the end. The revelation that the “puppy” story was adapted from a far more traumatic childhood incident made what followed fall into place, but it did so with what was, for me, a bit of a smug “click”. I guess once that was revealed, it was clear that the information was withheld only to create tension in the narrative arc; in fact, I got a sense that the story was crafted around this device. It’s problematic. Grace’s tone was so stagily blithe that I felt that Seamus would have dug a bit deeper. Actually, this is why I haven’t posted about it before now, because I’m arguing with myself about whether he really would have… since she was getting help, seemed to be coping, had such a good sense of humour… Aargh!
Reading a story set in the overlooked – but well-known to me – suburbs was really fun. And it wasn’t a “society murder”, “skeevy swingers” or “Melbourne’s real underbelly”, which made it even nicer.
Okay, so I’ve missed the round up of the women’s mags and the cake associated with a “live” book club, but I have spent the morning with trashy MTV reality shows and had a pastry for morning tea. And, because it’s still holidays, I think I’ll go and have a cider!
Molly – I’m going to post in a short while (next day or so) details of the next book and timelines… once I confirm with Katya.