Book Club Read: Open House

We all have our comfy reads. These include the authors we love and are a must buy. I revisit my favorite books over and over again. But I must be careful not to stay in the familiar. What happens when I read something different? 

It’s 2022. Book clubs have had a resurgence, but I’ve always been afraid of them. Women’s fiction isn’t my thing. General fiction's a no. I like genre stuff. My main habits are Romance, Murder or Science Fiction and Fantasy books. Besides the books, there is the in-person thing. Getting together for finger foods and wine sounds horrific.  

The Scribbler box I get every month often has books I would never find myself. It’s a smattering. Fiction, Non Fiction, and genre fiction all show up in the box. There are a few books I skipped. And that's ok. Not every book is for all humankind. One of my favorite finds was Scarlet Odyssey.  Rocked my world a bit. I love when someone writes something so unexpected it changes your world view.  

My second book club is from an art and crafts group on Patreon. I need to read the next book before Thursday. Sigh. I’m always behind. There is a zoom call once a month that is fun and upbeat. This month’s book is a children's book. It’s emotionally moving as the author spins adult themes into small sweet bites.   

My third book club selections are personal to the group. Maybe it’s someone we always wanted to read. We’ve had a couple of women’s fiction books and I think we did a craft book. We’ve been trying to get together on zoom to hang out and talk book talk.  

Photo by Svetlana🎞 from Pexels

This month we read Open House by Elizabeth Berg. I tag this one as Women’s Fiction. There is a hint of romance, but it’s not the center of the story. It’s about a woman who finds love and forgiveness for herself as she makes the choice to keep the big house after a divorce. She’s forced to take in lodgers. This rotating roster of characters teach all of us some lessons in being humans.  

All of us liked it. That isn’t always the case. Each of us found parts we thought spoke to us. We didn’t all pick the same passages either. The book stirred something deep for each reader.  

It’s written in the first person. Each chapter is a few scenes long. Each scene is curated to move you through the story. I’m not sure how a young person would feel about the book. It’s often exhausting to take in. As if my body is doing the work our protagonist is doing. That’s how well Elizabeth Berg writes. You’re living the story in first person. Brilliant.  

There was one lodger I thought was too over the top, but three people told me they didn’t think it was creepy. Interesting, right? What I get from others reading my work is I can never count on the reader having the experiences I did in the story. While I’m hopeful I have subtext, I'm not handling the arc of a recent divorcee who has a passion for Tiffany jewelry.  

One of my favorite quotes in the book. 

“When we were roommates in college, Rita had once asked, extremely gently, if my mother was mentally retarded. “No,” I said. “Just… Southern.” That was the only explanation I could come up with at the time.”

— Elizabeth Berg

I laughed until my belly hurt, and I snorted in my breath too fast. I get southern mother's. A breed of their own.

The biggest takeaway I took from this book is wrapping in an emotional setting. I’ve never been one for decorations in writing. My imagination can picture a tree. I don’t need to know the color of every single leaf dangling from it branches. I’ve got a writer friend for whom setting is another character. It’s so ingrained in the story that the work would be left unreadable without the place and time.  

Photo by Ricardo Esquivel from Pexels

But here in this book, the setting is draped with emotion. The house is what she’s keeping from her marriage. She is always in the rooms where her intact family had made so many memories. It’s in her face. I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed this in other works. I’m sure it’s there. This just happened to be the book where I noticed. She walks among the ghosts of the past with every room she visits.

Reading is a required duty if I want to write. Learning how other authors do it inspires me to try out new narratives. Plus, reading is fun.

Read stuff that isn’t in your wheelhouse. Pick a type of book you’d never pick up. Ask a friend or maybe a lady on the plane what’s she reading. Step outside your comfort zone. Be brave and dive in. There are so many nuggets waiting for you to find them.  

What book have you read that surprised you?

Bestseller Post Mortem: Forgotten in Death

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This article is about the bones of this book. I don’t do book reviews. There will be spoilers ahead. 

My guy is listening to Forgotten in Death by JD Robb when he runs errands in town. He’s vibrates with the need to tell me about the story, but I don’t like spoilers. In defense, I read the book while curled up under a blanket in two long segments of time. Had to beat him to the end! 

The book is number fifty-three in the In Death series. All the books are revolve around a cop solving murders in the future. The location is almost always New York City. The book is ninety-five thousand words long. A full-length novel with the plot to match.  

The beginning of these books always has famous quotes. I look forward to them and fitting them to the mystery. The first scene usually starts when the main character gets to the murder scene. The reader's first impressions are Eve Dallas’s. Something else I expect and enjoy. 

“She lived unknown,
and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!”

— William Wordsworth

“I do perceive here a divided duty.”

— William Shakespeare

There are twenty-three chapters. They move fast. The pacing solid. You move with Eve as she tries to find all the pieces to give the victims their justice. The weaving of description and dialogue is balanced enough you aren’t slowed down by it.  

The secondary characters make the story alive. These players who move in and out of the books have arcs of their own. This makes this series of books a must buy for me. I want to know what’s happening with all the people a reluctant Eve has taken on as she grows as a character. Can I just say I adore her for not knowing what to do with all the people in her life?  

It helps that the mysteries are more than window dressing. I’m always in awe of the skill to make the mystery compelling and folding in the characters in a way that is meaningful and not trite.  

ActionVance

The writing is relatable. I didn’t get bogged down or lost. One thing I’m learning from these bestsellers is a brilliant book doesn’t struggle with word choices. If the word “build” works, then it works. The book has a construction element. The author did not trip me up trying to find fifty different ways to say construction. What serves the story is what is said on the page. Makes the reading a joy. 

Bestsellers have at least one element in common. Great stories. I’ve heard a repeat bestseller say he has written over a hundred books, but only a fourth of them were bestsellers.  

If you are a writer, take heart. There is a bestseller inside you waiting for you to let it loose.

Bestseller Postmortem: It Ends With Us

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This go round we’re looking at a top ten bestseller It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover.  

This article is about the bones of this book. I don’t do book reviews. There will be spoilers ahead.  

On first glance, I didn’t want to read this book. The subject isn’t something I like to read about. I will not put a trigger warning per se, but domestic violence fingerprints are everywhere in the text. It is the story.  

The book comes in at about ninety-seven thousands words. This is a standalone fiction book. Single title. There are no fancy words or things you need to look up. Plain-spoken, with an insidious rhythm that never lets you go.  

The dedication of the book mentions her father and her mother. It is clear before the book starts that it revolves around stories most of us would rather hide in a box somewhere and forget about. I followed the train wreck and took a few notes regarding how she made a tough topic palatable. These are actual people dealing with real-world problems. No rainbows or unicorns. 

Charl Folscher

“We are all just people who sometimes do bad things.” This quote in the beginning chapter could be the logline for the stories in the rest of the piece. The power of that one sentence will stay with me.  

The emotional and often surprising major plot line moves through time. I don’t enjoy a book with time bouncing. I dislike it. I disliked it in this book as well. It’s a device I’ll probably avoid until I can get a better grip on what throws a reader out of the story. While it’s well done, I still wanted to skip those parts because flashbacks, memories and time hopping annoy the heck out of me. 

The book is set up in two parts. I could’ve done without the two parts division. But when the timeline skips around, this setup can be useful. The chapters are long. The sentence structure is long. The book is long. But you won’t notice because you’re being pulled by the conflicts written on the page.  

I’ll step out here and say when you get the writing advice to “Write what you know” do that. The author's trauma allowed her to write a deeply vulnerable book. So much laundry aired out. Her personal experience packs a punch.  

GR Stocks

The stench of domestic violence and its legacy in families is shown with heartbreaking clarity. Why do we make the decisions we make? How we resolve to be different and then find ourselves in the middle of what we wanted to avoid. The creeping up past your lines in the sand until you don’t recognize yourself. The little bites taken out of our soul.  

This book’s feelings meter red lined so many times. I learned so much reading this one. An unexpected rollercoaster that had me staring inside myself and remembering no one is perfect. We should all stop trying and get on with the living.  

If you want to see how goal, motivation and conflict can be almost entirely emotional without big outside factors, pick this one up. But I warn you, you’ll walk away from this book different from when you went in.  

Resources & support for anyone in the U.S. affected by intimate partner violence 24/7/365. 1-800-799-7233. Chat at http://thehotline.org | Text "START" to 88788.

Bestseller Postmortem: Dean Koontz's The Other Emily

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The bestseller list is still filled with children’s books. A pandemic and Dr Seuss panic buying has messed the algorithms hardcore. I bet here were authors who wished their books weren’t competing against It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny. 

I picked the new Dean Koontz book, The Other Emily. I’m hit or miss on his stuff, but there is always something to learn from a seasoned author. Plus, he loves dogs. I can’t say no.  

As a reminder, I don’t write reviews. I’m gleaning as much as I can from authors who’ve made it to the top ten list. I’m determined to be excellent at my craft.  

The Other Emily is offered on Kindle Unlimited, so I didn’t buy it. It was a surprised to see it as a free read for me.  

The book is 363 pages. At 250 words per page, the novel had a word count right around 90,000. I’ll say I read this all-in-one sitting. It didn’t feel long. In fact, I wasn’t ready for the story to be over.  

“She was in that highest rank of beauties that inspired stupid men to commit foolish acts and made wiser men despair for their inadequacies.”

— Dean Koontz

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Heather Zabriskie

Short chapters breaks the book up. Each chapter is one scene. I’m seeing this more and more from books on the list. Maybe it's a trend? Ninety-five chapters in total.  

I don’t know what genre to say this book is. It seems to be marketed as a thriller. Maybe? But without spoiling things, this book is so much more. It unfolds beautifully. Like the hero, you’ve got clues, but you can’t make them fit. It’s not possible. Koontz tells us the ending over and over. But you’re so into the story and not seeing the flares he’s sending up.  

The end ended. Honestly, I was shocked it ended.. I wanted more. What happened? My mind couldn’t take in that it was over because it just stops. Boom.  

The book's themes weren’t heavy handed. From the blurb, you know the hero's girlfriend disappeared ten years ago. A serial killer picked her up when her car broken down. The hero feels guilty that he wasn’t there to save her. Good versus evil is always solid, but Koontz crafts a world where up is down and down is up. Morality. Ethics. Danger. It’s all there. How far can you push someone before they break? 

“Life is full off mysteries, isn’t it? And maybe we don’t always need to know the answers to them.”

— Dean Koontz

Koontz does a great job sprinkling in little pieces that payoff later on. You don't even realize the seed has been planted until it’s in your face. This is so satisfying. It makes a reader feel like they are learning as the hero does. Fabulous. 

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Brady Knoll

The story unfurls like an ice cube melting with the prize in its center. As a reader, I wasn’t always sure if it was a dream or reality. It’s like The Sixth Sense. You keep hoping you’ll figure it out. It’s why I read this book in one sitting. Glued to my kindle looking at the time and telling myself “one more scene, then I’ll go to bed.” I failed that test over and over as I fell deeper down the tunnel Koontz made real.  

I wish I could put my finger on what keeps these authors on the lists. They write sentences that turn into scenes and then chapters, ends as an entire book. All writers follow the same matrix when they sit down to create. But these powerhouse authors have sprinkled some kind of addictive storytelling that holds you by the throat, and you don’t get another good breath in until you read the last sentence.  

This would be a brilliant book to pick up for a fun read. You’ll get lost in the plot, always questioning what the hell is happening. It’ll keep you up too late reading like it did me.  

What are you reading?