Currently reading: The Reading Group, by Elizabeth Noble. It's about a group of women (why are the people in book clubs always women? both in real life and in literature? i've been in three book clubs and none has had a male member... ah well) in a book club. It's set in the UK. I started reading the book, got about a chapter in, and immediately got depressed. Not one of these women is having a very good life right now. Mostly, they're unhappy or dissatisfied with their marriages, although just for a bit of variety, one woman has a happy marriage and is dealing with an uncaring sister and a mother who's dying and one woman is in the beginning of a relationship and it seems to be going fairly well, but her 20-year old daughter is pregnant... by the husband of one of the other women in the reading group.
Oy. It's definitely a bit of a soap opera, but I keep hoping that the resolutions are going to make me feel like the reading is worth it.
Nicole is Ms. Perfect, on the outside. Unfortunately, although she loves her husband, Gavin, passionately, he's been unfaithful regularly since day 1. She gets pregnant and hasn't told him yet.
Harriet, Nicole's best friend, is married to the sweet and wonderful Tim, but she's not in love with him anymore, she says. She tries to have an affair, realizes she's not made for that, and is now suffering quietly.
Polly is a single parent to Cressida, she who turns up pregnant. She gets engaged during the book to Jack.
Polly's close friend is Susan, whose mother is having quite bad memory loss and is quietly and slowly dying.
Susan works with Mary, Clare's mother. Clare is a midwife who can't have a baby. She leaves her husband, Elliot, and finds out a month or so later that he's been having an affaire with Cressida and that she's pregnant.
The book chronicles their relationships with each other and with their families, and doesn't actually spend very much time talking about the books they read, although they form a framework for the story.
I keep hoping that it's going to be worth it when I'm done -- I'll let you know.
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