Book Review: The Reading Group

I picked this book up while browsing Target's book section last summer and since I was in a book club, I thought this would be a fun one to have the club read sometime. That was during the early stages of the book club when it was fun and exciting...now, I rarely go. As I was browsing through my box of books yet to be read, I finally decided to read this one.

It's about five completely different women who start a book club and how the books they chose throughout the year seemed to mimic what was going on in their life. From a book club that met once a month, it turned into more of a support group towards the end of this year. I loved how the book was arranged. Every chapter was a new month and it had the book title and author that the club was reading as well as an excerpt. A couple of the books I had already read such as The Girl With A Pearl Earring and The Alchemist so I felt like an anonymous group member as they discussed it. Parts of the book was unbelievable such as the 20 year old daughter of one of the book club members having sex with the husband of another and getting pregnant from it which, while a bit of a farse, is also part of the book that struck a chord with me the most. This husband, Elliot, and his wife, fellow book club member Claire, are having difficulty having a child. She has had numerous miscarriages when she has been pregnant and just over the years, the strain of this is ruining their marriage. They have been to doctors so they know that the issue is with Claire and they have been through fertility treatments which haven't worked. While this is fiction, Claire and Elliot are the reason why I have no urge to find out why Big A and I have yet to reproduce. I just feel that knowing if it's my bad eggs or maybe his lazy swimmers would come to no good. This feeling was reinforced by my friend who spent $15,000 to get pregnant through fertility treatments (and that was what it cost for the one that worked. She went through one other cycle before that that did not). Their son is now 2 but over the past year, they have been having marital issues. When she finally told everyone what was going on, she said that if it didn't work out, perhaps there was a chance to find a man with good swimmers and she could have a child naturally, albeit she has problems also so that chance would still be slim but the fact that she said that rather than focusing on fixing what was wrong in the marrage (they were in counseling at the time) surprised me. Although if you asked Big A, he said he wasn't surprised because he's known all along that she's an idiot.

It's funny that a book I thought would just be a light read would actually contain pertinent information although I'm undecided if, while quite an enjoyable read, this book was good enough to keep.