Beastmomma

I am very slow with completing books as I am consumed with job hunting for a health lawyer position in MA. I thought it would be fun to track my reading progress each week. The Sunday Salon is  an online reading group where all the participants set aside time to read every Sunday and blog about the experience. To learn more or to join, click on the picture above.

This morning, I read more of A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick which I started on Thursday.  It is the April selection for the Worcester book club.  I am intrigued by the mysterious past of the characters which has drawn them together.  I am curious about what will happen next.  The curiosity makes it easy for me to keep turning the pages.  Over the past two months all of my reading choices have been dictated by book club reads.  In an effort to meet people, I attended four meetings in one month.  I am not going to be able to keep up with all the reading selections, but I am enjoying myself.

Since my last Sunday Salon post where I was pretty angry, I have had a few good bookish encounters both in between the pages of books and in person encounters.  First even though I was not a fan of her writing, I found myself having a Gilbert Shift.  I had a good encounter with the book group I met with to discuss her latest book.  Second, I read and reviewed Chocolat by Joanne Harris.  It actually worked towards helping me complete six challenges; you can find my review here.  I read the book for the second meeting of the Natick book club which I had intended to drop out of, but I had such a great time that I am looking forward to returning!

In non-book news, I am still job searching. It is hard to not get disheartened. I have been focusing on networking which brings me into the city on the commuter train.  One silver lining of the train rides is that I have uninterrupted reading time!

From goodreads:

Vianne Rocher and her 6-year-old daughter, Anouk, arrive in the small village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes--"a blip on the fast road between Toulouse and Bourdeaux"--in February, during the carnival. Three days later, Vianne opens a luxuriant chocolate shop crammed with the most tempting of confections and offering a mouth-watering variety of hot chocolate drinks. It's Lent, the shop is opposite the church and open on Sundays, and Francis Reynaud, the austere parish priest, is livid.

One by one the locals succumb to Vianne's concoctions. Joanne Harris weaves their secrets and troubles, their loves and desires, into her third novel, with the lightest touch. There's sad, polite Guillame and his dying dog; thieving, beaten-up Joséphine Muscat; schoolchildren who declare it "hypercool" when Vianne says they can help eat the window display--a gingerbread house complete with witch. And there's Armande, still vigorous in her 80s, who can see Anouk's "imaginary" rabbit, Pantoufle, and recognizes Vianne for who she really is. However, certain villagers--including Armande's snobby daughter and Joséphine's violent husband--side with Reynaud. So when Vianne announces a Grand Festival of Chocolate commencing Easter Sunday, it's all-out war: war between church and chocolate, between good and evil, between love and dogma.

Pages: 306 (paperback)

Rating: 7 out of 10

Source: Gift from Care given on the occasion of our first in-person meeting.  Here is her review.

I read Chocolat by Joanne Harris for the second meeting of the Natick book club.  When the book was selected, I was excited for two reasons.  First, I had seen and enjoyed the movie.  Second, I already owned the book. 

As I read the book, I realized that it was much more than a love story between a stranger in town and an eccentric owner of a chocolate shop.  The book is filled with examples of the tension between indulgence, moderation, and abstinence.  To me Vianne Roucher represented the struggle to have pleasure while living with purpose.  She started the Chocolat cafe to do something she loves which is cooking and ends up helping people by listening to their stories and giving them their favorite chocolates.  Reynaud who is the town priest represents complete abstinence.  He is horrified at the existence of the cafe and views it and Vianne as an affront to the views he holds most dear. Through flashbacks, I learned that both sides of the spectrum are more complex than they appear.  In particular, I was struck with Reynaud's story.  He clings very strongly to certain aspects of his faith to make sense of something horrible he witnessed as a young child. 

The other characters all had their own versions of the struggle between what I perceived as pure evil and pure good.  One of the universal themes of the book is that the people who are most at peace are those who use their own moral compass to navigate what is good and what is bad.  I found this played out most clearly in the interconnected relationship between Josephine, Armande, and Guillarne.  All the characters were outside of the mainstream and found comfort in the Cafe.  I really loved reading how they formed their own community and created safe spaces for themselves.

One thing I did not care for much was the character of Roux. In particular, I could not figure out his connection with Vianne.  At the end of the book, I was confused and puzzled by his role.   The last twenty pages or so were packed with plot summary.  While everything wrapped up, I found that it was a bit too tidy and some things (like the Roux situation) did not fit well with the rest of the plot.

Nonetheless, I was glad that I read the book because I got to discuss it over a fun night out at a yummy place. Also, I got to drool over chocolate which is certainly not a bad thing!

I am using the book to work towards completing the following challenges:

• Orbis Terrarum: The author was born in England.  More information on her bio is found here.
• World Party Reading Challenge: The book takes place in France
• Global Reading Challenge: The book is set in France
• What's in a Name Three: It fulfills the food category.
• Women Unbound: The story focus on a woman trying to make her place in a new village. She helps other people find their own voices and create their own paths.
• Reading Western Europe: The story unfolds in a village in France.

In general, do you prefer the beginnings of stories? Or the ends?

In general I prefer the end of books, especially if they are really well written and a perfect plot twist occurs.  Other times, I prefer the beginning if the ending was terrible. Once in awhile, I prefer the beginning because I loved the book and miss the characters now that the book has finished.

Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness? Which would you rather read?

I would much rather read plots.  While I do enjoy stream-of-consciousness, I do not always "get it." I find myself confused and lost which are not good feelings when trying to enjoy a book.

I am very slow with completing books as I am consumed with job hunting for a health lawyer position in MA. I thought it would be fun to track my reading progress each week. The Sunday Salon is  an online reading group where all the participants set aside time to read every Sunday and blog about the experience. To learn more or to join, click on the picture above.'

I had a frustrating day with reading.  A few years ago, I read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  I have NEVER HATED A BOOK MORE! The book turned out to be incredibly divisive among my circle of friends and in the global reading community.  Fast forward a few years to me trying to make friends as a newly married woman (without a job yet) in a new city.  Turns out that it is tough to make friends when you do not have school or a job.  I decided to join some book clubs to make friends.  Unfortunately, I am having trouble finding one that I click with as much as I did the ones I was in before. 

One of Partner's friends from Duke has a fiance who is a book club that meets in Boston.  She told me that the group is made up of people our age and life stage.  I was totally psyched about the group until I found out the selection.  It is Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert.  I almost cried.  As if that was not bad enough, I was number 200 on the wait list at the library.  I had to buy the book which was only available in HARDBACK.  I have been trying not to buy books this year and I felt so annoyed that I had to drop $26.80 for a copy of her book.   I kept hoping that it would not be so bad, but every time I read just a few sentences I want to puke.  I read some more of the book this morning and I felt grouchy for the rest of the day.

I really hope that going through this horrible reading experience leads me to meet some interesting people in this new book club. 

This week I also went to a meeting of the library book club. Usually, I find that entertaining and educational because the membership is retired teachers who take turns lecturing the rest of us about the book.  It feels like I am in the middle of a literary play where the characters are using words instead of swords to win a debate.   For the last meeting, we read Two Souls Indivisible: The Friendship that Saved Two POWs in Vietnam.  The discussion was awful and really upset me to the point where I thought that my head was going to explode. I am not sure if I am going to return to the group or not; if you are interested, you can read more of the gory details in my review.

While books are such a joy and refuge for me, I find myself really upset and charged up by them today and earlier this week.  I hope that the coming week will be better.  I feel like I need some form of literary aloe vera to calm myself.  Does anyone have suggestions for what would bring me back to a happy reading place?