February Book Club

I joined a book club! I have a tendency to check out 30 books from the library, flip through 20 of them, begin 10 of them, and finish 2 of them. And then I forget I have them and pay late fees on all of them. It's an illness. It doesn't help that our library lets us check out 50 books per card. It feels like a challenge.

Joining Bookish Bloggers sounded like a good way to motivate myself to finish books and be more purposeful with my reading. Something I didn't think through too terribly well is that each  member chooses a book and I don't know these people! What if I hate their taste? I'm sure it will be good to stretch myself a bit.

This first book was a stretch for me, but it turned out well. The book discussion is hosted at Evil Stepmother this month. The book she chose is Big Little Lies. Here is my brief review:

I enjoyed Big Little Lies. It is very different from what I usually read, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. It is hilarious, but through all the comedy, you know it is ultimately leading to a murder mystery thanks to the snippets of interview questions between each chapter. And then suddenly, at the end, you realize there's a whole lot bigger message than just entertainment going on. It's summed up well in this quote:

"It occurred to her that there were so many levels of evil in the world. Small evils like her own malicious words. Like not inviting a child to a party. Bigger evils like walking out on your wife and newborn baby or sleeping with your child's nanny. And then there was the sort of evil of which Madeline had no experience: cruelty in hotel rooms and violence in suburban homes and little girls being sold like merchandise, shattering innocent hearts." 

The book really gave a glimpse into all of these different facets of humanity. Some are very familiar, some completely foreign. The author did a great job of helping the reader understand how complicated life really is...how complicated abuse situations can be. I was impressed with her honesty. The truth is, we all have our bits of evil. Not a one of us is above it. We all are in need of mercy; this book made me appreciate God's grace all the more. 

The writing wasn't that of a classic and the author really likes the F-word, which was really hard for me to get past. If I hadn't committed through a book club, I would have put it down. But then I would have missed out on some great stuff. I don't know that I would recommend it, particularly to anyone under 30 years old, but I did enjoy it.