The Help - Questions

Hello everyone,

Here are some questions to think about for Thursdays meeting.

- What do you think motivated Hilly? On the one hand she is terribly cruel to Aibileen and her own help, as well as to Skeeter once she realizes that she can’t control her. Yet she’s a wonderful mother. Do you think that one can be a good mother but, at the same time, a deeply flawed person?

- How much of a person’s character would you say is shaped by the times in which they live?

- Do you think that had Aibileen stayed working for Miss Elizabeth, that Mae Mobley would have grown up to be racist like her mother? Do you think racism is inherent, or taught?

- From the perspective of a twenty-first century reader, the hairshellac system that Skeeter undergoes seems ludicrous. Yet women still alter their looks in rather peculiar ways as the definition of “beauty” changes with the times. Looking back on your past, what’s the most ridiculous beauty regimen you ever underwent?

- What did you think about Minny’s pie for Miss Hilly? Would you have gone as far as Minny did for revenge?

I think this book is going to create a lot of discussion.

Questions from authors own website.

Advice for Strays - Justine Kilkerr

This months bookclub was a little light on members due to all the bank holidays before and after it. Nicola brought along the refreshments this month, so we all had larger cake slices than usual to make up for everyone else.

This book seems to have stumped a large amount of the book club, almost half the people at the meeting had not managed to read through to the end. Some also said they might not finish it after hearing what was discussed in the meeting.

We all felt that the book was very well written, it read very easily even though the topic itself was very confusing. Many people in the club felt that although they weren't gripped enough to want to pick the book up as often as they felt they should, once they had picked it up they got drawn back in very quickly. Some people found the little chapters to be a hinderance to their getting drawn into the book, others felt that this gave some good natural breaks to the narration.

The reason why so many people weren't gripped by the book was because it didn't have much of a plot, but then that's not what this book is about. It was felt that the book didn't go anywhere much, things just seemed to happen without much obvious direction. The ending we found to be good, but it wasn't much of a resolution, but then again this is more realistic than many neat endings in other books.

The main source for discussion came from the lion Jericho, and whether he was real or not. There seems to be a lot of evidence in the book to say that he was very real at certain points. But then again how can a lion be really living in a suburban street and talking to a person? We had a short discussion on what we each do to give ourselves more confidence, in the same way that Marnie uses Jericho. This gave us some insight into the reasons why someone would invent an imaginary friend later in life. Eventually we all agreed that Jericho is a very subjective character in the book, everyone seemed to interpret him very differently.

Overall we gave the book a 4 out of 10 with marks ranging from 0 to 7.

Advice for Strays - Questions

Hello everyone,

Here are some questions for the book for the 28th April.

- You may want to take a look at your own sanity before judging characters in the book. Okay so perhaps you don’t have a talking lion curled up in your front room, but do you ever whisper words of encouragement to yourself? Or pretend to be someone else for the day – someone stronger, smarter, more confident?

- How do you feel about the ending of the book? Are there too many loose ends?

- Is Jericho a figment of Marnie's frazzled mind, or the physical manifestation of all her worries and despair? And whatever Jericho is, can he help Marnie rely on herself for once?

Questions inspired by Running in Heels.

Savage Lands - Clare Clark

This month the cake and biscuits were supplied by Sarah, they were enjoyed by everyone.

Four members of the bookclub didn't manage to finish this month's book, and they weren't sure they would continue with it after the meeting. The reason for this seemed to be that they found it very hard going, only managing to read a few pages at a time. We also felt that there seemed to be no major theme running through the book to give the reader something to want to follow. There were a few different themes, none of which seemed to get to a satisfactory conclusion. We weren't sure whether the dissatisfaction with the themes was to do with the writing style which we found to be very literary and not very clear. The themes also seemed not to move very fast, it felt very static as you were reading it.

Most of the bookclub became very confused about the time periods between the different chapters in the book. We needed to have a bit more information as to when things were happening, and how far apart in time different parts of the book occurred. Trying to discover these time periods by looking for clues in the text was very confusing and we would have preferred for this to be more obvious.

We did feel that the historical aspects of the book had been very well researched, they were highly evocative of the time period. The sections of the book that described how people lived, and the interactions between the "savages" and the townsfolk were very interesting. We also enjoyed the section when Elisabeth was reading her books, we felt this could have been used to better effect within the book. The descriptions of Auguste's garden and his drawings of plants were also very interesting but more could have been made of this.

The use of language in the book was excellent, with some lovely descriptive passages to do with the environment. However, the descriptions of the characters and their reactions to things was not so well done. Of the characters in the book not many of the bookclub members felt any connection to any of them. We felt they were very dry, maybe this was to do with the author being too historically accurate to the detriment of creating likeable, or realistic characters.

Overall we gave this book 4 out of 10, only a couple of people would recommend it to their friends.

Savage Lands - Questions

Hello,

Here are some questions on this months book which we'll be discussing on Thursday 31st March.

- Elisabeth carries her copies of Montaigne with her across the ocean – and names her baby Michel. Do his books turn out to be a useful thing to carry across, despite Elizabeth’s mothers frustration? Consider how the French re-learn how to live in the swamps of Louisiana.

- ‘Who knew what kind of a savage he himself might become among the savages?’ (page 298) – the fear of intermarriage, friendship and bastard children between the French and the natives is found throughout the novel. Is it exposure to the natives that ruins the settlement, or the Europeans inability to react to their new situation and surroundings?

- The misuse of power is demonstrated repeatedly throughout the novel – is anyone innocent of this type of manipulation? Consider the governor and soldiers’ misuse of power, the power of fear, the power of love and marriage and the power of omission.

See you all next week!

Questions are from Readers Place.

You Are Next

This months book came from Random House as part of their sponsorship for the first four months of 2011.

Our cake this month was produced by Gaynor and was enjoyed by everyone!

This novel was the second thriller we've read in a row and everyone agreed that this was something we should avoid for next time as it may have jaded our view. We all felt that we've had enough of thrillers for a little while!

This month we had a selection of questions to use which came in very handy for focusing our discussions. Question sets are an invaluable resource for bookclubs.

Many of the bookclub members do not as a rule read crime, whereas some of the bookclub are more hardened crime readers. This caused a bit of a divide in the group with some people really enjoying the novel and others finding it a bit too basic for them. We all agreed that this would be an excellent starting point for someone new to the crime genre. However, we all felt that thrillers in general are not built for the kind of scrutiny that our bookclub gives its books.

It was a fairly formulaic novel, as crime novels go, which aggravated some readers but others felt this was almost comforting in its certainty of what would be coming next. We felt that it was very linear in its movement from one scene to the next, this might make it a better film than it was a book. There are certain scenes, for example the party, that we really could see as a film.

We all felt very sorry for Karin and the things she had to go through both before and during this book. However, there was a little too much focus on her depression and suicidal tendencies for us not to feel a bit annoyed with her at times. The changes in the relationship between Karin and Mac was interesting to follow, although it was a little odd at times, eg. during the ComiCon scenes.

Overall this was a book that we mostly enjoyed, but not as a bookclub selection. We gave this book an average of 6 out of 10. Many of the bookclub copies have been lent to others, meaning this was a book people had enjoyed!

Book Club Questions - You Are Next

Hello everyone,

Here are some questions to get you thinking in time for this weeks meeting:

- How effective is the use of the dominoes in the story?
- How well do you think You Are Next could be transferred to the silver screen?
- The character of Christa is introduced to the novel quite late on. How well rounded is her character as a result? Is she as threatening/scary/intense as the reader requires? If not, why not?
- Do you like the character of Karin Schaeffer as a character? How rounded is she?
- Is it a satisfying ending?

See you all on Thursday!

Questions are from Readers Place.