The Reading Group brings together five women for a year's worth of monthly book club meetings. While they do talk about the books (although extremely briefly) the novel is more about the lives and families of the women and how much can happen in just one year. The book takes place in England, all the characters are British - a fact that doesn't usually bother me, but this time I kept getting hung up on the unfamiliar slang. Not understanding all the references that were made might have softened the impact of certain events in the story for me.
It's pretty easy to sum up our ladies into stereotypical characters: one whose husband cheats, the divorcee finding love again, one suffering a female mid-life crisis, the one coming to terms with the mortality of a parent, and lastly the one who thought she knew what she wanted in life but really had it all wrong. I think the simplistic packaging each of these women can fit into really detracts from the ability to form an emotional attachment to them unless you've gone through what they're experiencing. And, while they endure more than just what their stereotypical definitions entail, I found myself unable to be sympathetic.
If you look at the book as a whole, without concentrating on the characters themselves, I do really like the message - that it's the hard spots in life that can bring a group of people together. Especially when women come together, the bond that forms is unbreakable. It's amazing having close female friends to talk to about everything. I just didn't feel like this message was the main trust of the book. To me, this book was written to prove the point that life can be crap and is a lot of the time, but things usually work out (Oh, and read books). Not really a message I need to wait 400+ pages to get to though.
Pick this up if a) you're in a book club or b) you're past the point in your life where everyone you know is newly married or first-time parents.
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