Almost everyone in the book club finished this months book, although not everyone enjoyed it. It was felt that although the style was very light and it was easy to read it wasn't every enjoyable.
This is a parallel book running alongside the story told in "The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry", which most of the book club members have read for a previous meeting. However, there were some new members who had not read the first book and they felt that they might have been missing something from this book having not read Harold Fry. They did enjoy parts of the book but they wondered if some elements might have had a better explanation if they had read both books. However, on the whole the books do work well as stand alones.
It was interesting reading about the hospice where Queenie was spending her last few months, we felt that it wasn't as bleak and dark as we expected it. In fact there were some lovely humorous elements along with some entertaining characters such as Finty, in amongst the many visits of the undertakers car. It felt as though the people there were trying to live their lives as best they could rather than thinking about the things that were wrong with them. We're not sure if this is completely accurate, but Joyce did do a lot of research by visiting hospices so we can only assume that it is.
We felt very sorry for Queenie as she seemed to be on the edges throughout her life until the moment that Harold decided to go on his walk to visit her. Queenie just seemed to be like background noise in peoples lives, she seemed to think she was important but in fact we don't think that many people really noticed her at all. She didn't seem to have a proper close relationship with anyone within the book, she always seemed to not want to get close to anyone, there was always a reason for this but never a particularly good reason. Although given this she did seem to find a certain type of happiness within her life, nothing big and flashy but possibly enough for her?
The relationship between Queenie and David was interesting as this did add an extra element to the Harold Fry book which we hadn't seen before. In fact we hadn't really got to know David before so he was in fact an extra character in this book compared to Harold Fry.
Overall we gave this book 6.5 out of 10.
This is a parallel book running alongside the story told in "The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry", which most of the book club members have read for a previous meeting. However, there were some new members who had not read the first book and they felt that they might have been missing something from this book having not read Harold Fry. They did enjoy parts of the book but they wondered if some elements might have had a better explanation if they had read both books. However, on the whole the books do work well as stand alones.
It was interesting reading about the hospice where Queenie was spending her last few months, we felt that it wasn't as bleak and dark as we expected it. In fact there were some lovely humorous elements along with some entertaining characters such as Finty, in amongst the many visits of the undertakers car. It felt as though the people there were trying to live their lives as best they could rather than thinking about the things that were wrong with them. We're not sure if this is completely accurate, but Joyce did do a lot of research by visiting hospices so we can only assume that it is.
We felt very sorry for Queenie as she seemed to be on the edges throughout her life until the moment that Harold decided to go on his walk to visit her. Queenie just seemed to be like background noise in peoples lives, she seemed to think she was important but in fact we don't think that many people really noticed her at all. She didn't seem to have a proper close relationship with anyone within the book, she always seemed to not want to get close to anyone, there was always a reason for this but never a particularly good reason. Although given this she did seem to find a certain type of happiness within her life, nothing big and flashy but possibly enough for her?
The relationship between Queenie and David was interesting as this did add an extra element to the Harold Fry book which we hadn't seen before. In fact we hadn't really got to know David before so he was in fact an extra character in this book compared to Harold Fry.
Overall we gave this book 6.5 out of 10.
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