The title intrigued me right away; I loved Anna Karenina! There was good character development in the first part of the book....and each woman added to the book discussions in a manner indicative of her personality and her insights into each author. The story began to disseminate at about the halfway point and the characters became quite predictable. The author could have been more in-depth in continuing each woman's story and could have added some unexpected twists ( note there was one exception).
Overall, I enjoyed the book, but probably would not recommend it for a book club.

What a concept: discuss the story of friends in the context of a book group and the books they are reading. It's a book-lover's dream! Well-written page turner.

not a great book. Not a horrible book. But not a great book. I think it wanted to be a smart literary book with the heart of the Sex and the City friendships. It wasn't. Maybe if I was more familiar with the books they'd read. However, it did make me want to join a book club.

This was among a number of "book club" novels I set out to read at one point and I thought it was one of the more well done. (Disclaimer: Anna Karenina is one of my favorite novels, so perhaps I was sympathetically predisposed to this book). Anyway, I thought it was an interesting take on the transformative effect of books, showing how individual club members really re-examined their lives and priorities as a result of experiencing an Anna Karenina like moment.

Reinforced for me why women get together & connect emotionally. I so love being a woman!

I like books about women. I like books about books. So it would stand to reason that I liked this novel about a group of fictious women and the books they discussed. And I did...mostly.

I liked the wide diversity within the book club. I liked that books were the thread binding these women together as friends. I liked the author's description of the women's good attributes mingled among their many faults. It made the characters real. Finally, I liked Gloria Goldreich's simple prose. It made immersing myself within the book easy.

What didn't I like? The overly simple plot could have used some beefing up. I also felt that for such a "lofty and superior bookclub", the actual books were under utilized. I would have liked to see more connection between the books read in bookclub to the characters and their outside lives.

If nothing else it directed
Me to read Wharton's The Reef

Six very different women in New York City, all lovers of literature, have formed a monthly book club that has been meeting for several years. At a September meeting after a summer break, Cynthia announces that she is divorcing her husband – that she put him out of the house the night before because she had found out something about him – but she won’t define the problem. As they go through their year of meetings, each woman confronts her own shortcomings and the group learns not only from the books they read, but from others in the group. They read Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, works by Edith Wharton, Shirley Jackson, Sylvia Plath, and Lolita and Reading Lolita in Tehran, and Little Women. The lives of the six women are worked well into the plot of the book, and the reader comes to feel that she is a member of the club as well. The discussions of the books read are part of the story, so one learns about these authors and books as well.

This book was so dull! So very, very dull. It was repetitive and in my opinion pretentiously written. Yes, I chose keep reading it thinking something was going to happen. No. Not really. Yes, I could have put this book down and walked away. The description was very enticing to me and I just knew it would pick up and have something interesting or big somewhere soon for goodness sake something HAD to happen. What really bothered me the most about this snoreville of a read was that there was this big question alllllll the way through the book as to why Cynthia would end her marriage. Why? Why? Why? All her girlfriends wondered? They had coffee, lunch and dinner dates together to speculate. If your really friends just come out with it and ask. Cynthia said she didn't want to talk about it and so for months these ladies speculated over it. Perhaps I'm rude but I still would have been like, come one girl what's the deal? You kicked him out, you have kids what is so bad you are ready to end your marriage? Well the big secret wasn't that bad. But this book was.

Citisem o carte cu subiect similar: Citind Lolita în Teheran de Azar Nafisi care mi s-a părut genială. Și poate că mă așteptam ca această carte să fie măcar o umbră palidă a celeilalte.

Dar nu mi-a plăcut aproape deloc. Am terminat-o din inerție-pentru că era ușor de citit nu datorită dificultății și pentru că speram ca măcar ultimele pagini să fie altfel. Pe scurt, 6 femei diferite-cariere și caractere diferite- fac parte dintr-un club de lectură. Focusul e totuși mai mult pe vieților lor decât pe lecturile în sine-se tot menționează că le place atât de mult să citească și cât de mult înseamnă lectura pentru ele, dar rămân doar la nivel de cuvinte. Intriga-generată de despărțirea Cynthiei, femeia care avea viața perfectă, de soțul ei- duce doar la discuții inutile: ce li s-o fi întâmplat? gata să ne trezim și noi ca să nu pățim la fel. Sfârșitul sec m-a făcut să mă gândesc de ce mi-am pierdut timpul cu cartea asta. Dar mi-am dat seama că mi-a plăcut totuși ceva: discuțiile despre cărți și viețile autorilor așa vagi cum erau ele.

Maybe a 3.5. I found myself speed reading to get through parts.

I was a little nervous about reading this book after I saw the diversity of stars and comments. I neither loved, nor hated this book. I was very interested in it and have added some of the classics these ladies read to my own reading list in order to better know the discussions at hand. I love to read about people who read and have read other book club stories. This one was pretty middle of the road for me. It was a good commute read and kept me interested but I doubt I would highly recommend it or read it again myself.