Orange is the New Black

Every so often we read something for book club on which we all agree we would recommend. "Orange is the New Black" was NOT one of those books! We all agreed that there was a lot of potential for the topic, but that the author fell short.

This did not preclude us from having a lively discussion about the content and what would have improved the book, including better or stronger editing to actually weave together the threads of a story and recurring themes, a more detailed account of how her time in prison informed her choices following the experience, fewer - yet more impactful - examples and stories of the women she met during her stay. Another suggestion for improvement was to leverage this vehicle to inspire change in the system.

Early on in the book, Kerman references that as she prepared for her time away, she read all that she could about life in prison and that the only books she could find had been authored by men. This attempt at a story appeared to be her way of filling that niche and making some money for herself.

Moving on...we also spent some time reviewing our options for the May book. As we talked through the choices that had been presented in the poll, three members who originally voted for Rules of Civility actually changed their votes given that we just read The Paris Wife set during the same timeframe and we wanted to change it up. Our May book is now The Violets of March by Sarah Jio, recommended originally by Donna H.

Our meetings have been smaller the past few months, so hopefully we'll see some more - and even some new - faces in May!

The Paris Wife

The Paris Wife generated much discussion amid our small group of four during the March meeting. Dorie, who said this was among one of her favorites of the books we've read, led the discussion with several compelling questions.

The intermingling of historic figures with the fictional account of Hadley and Ernest's life together made for an interesting story and a view at life in the 20s in Europe.

Given that the gathering was so small, we did not select the remaining books for our book club season as we had originally planned, but rather determined our book for April (non-fiction selection Orange is the New Black) and we're asking for the rest of the group to weigh in on the May book (see the poll to the right).

Thank you to everyone who shared some new items for our "What We'd Like to Read" list. Keep those suggestions coming!