The Book Club- Mary Alice Monroe

# of book read so far this year: 11th in the month of November

Title: The Book Club

Author: Mary Alice Monroe

Year Published: 1999

Rating (1-10): 7

Date Finished: 11/29/07

Genre: contemporary fiction

# of pages: 352

Number in Series: not part of a series

Where did the book come from: I checked it out from the library

Why I read it: I was looking at someone's shelf on Shelfari recently and this book caught my attention. I thought the synopsis sounded good, kinda similar to Thursdays At Eight by Debbie Macomber, so I decided to read it.

Blurb (story line): a group of 5 women who are good friends, and in a book club. All of them have different backgrounds, and all of them are going through different stages in their lives. Midge is Single, an aspiring artist, and in the story her mom wants to move back to Chicago. It is then that Midge realizes how much older her mother has gotten. Eve loses her husband to a heart attack and must deal with the pain and then move on with her life. Her husband was a doctor so she wasn't working before..she goes through some big changes...gets a job, moves to a smaller apartment, and even meets a guy at her work, who she ends up getting into a relationship with. Toward the end of the book, she even goes back to school to update her teaching certification. Annie is an attorney, who never really thought about having children before, but suddenly she desperately wants them. She has a really hard time getting pregnant, until she discovers she has cancer and must have her uterus removed. She definitely goes through tough times in her marriage during this time, and her marriage almost ends, but they pull through. Gabriella's husband loses his job, which puts stress on the entire family. Doris finally admits to herself that her husband is unfaithful and that there's really no love between them. She divorces him and gains a new outlook on life.

My personal thoughts and comments: I will saw that I was somewhat dissapointed in this book. I thought it would be more like Thursdays At Eight, where they all came to book club meetings and talked about life. It really didn't focus much on the book club, it focused more on the womens' lives OUTSIDE the book club. I didn't really care for Annie....she seemed way too self-centered. There always seemed to be a competition between her and Doris and that got old. I liked Eve, and the book seemed to leave Gabriella out a lot of the time. I think I most identified with Madge. The book was good, but it seemed to drag on in certain parts. I do not regret reading it though.