June's Selection

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures  by Vincent Lam

Our entire club was able to meet for the review of this month's selection, including Melissa's mom Linda who thrilled us all with her provocative, yet accurate performance depicting the trials and tribulations faced by so many in the medical field.

Overall, the book received fairly negative grades.  We agreed that the author just fell flat when he was trying to bring his characters to life.  The characters were not developed enough to neither love or hate any of them.  They came off as empty shells and leaving all of us wanting to know more, or feel something for anyone that was more than a fleeting feeling at the moment.  We agreed there was no story arch-and the collection of short stories was not adequately strung together to make a cohesive story or fluid experience.  The ending was abrupt and left us wanting more.

Ratings:
Lee (6):  enjoyed some of the characters, but really need more information to care about them.  She was totally crushing on Siri.

Melissa (4.5):  thought there could have and should have been more.  There were elements were Lam almost "teased" you with the idea that things were going to come, but then fell flat and left you hanging.  Hated the ending! 

Michele (4):  though it was unsatisfying.  Not coherent, the author had no vision or voice.  There was no story arch.  Overall, the entire story and it's characters were very "beige"

Maria (4.5):  had trouble getting over the "purple parrot" element-this muddied and confused any sense of meaning.  She did like the schizophrenia story line

Ellyn (3):  The character of Ming really bothered her and gave the impression that the author had issues with woman.  The characters were very 1 dimensional.

Liz (5):  There were scenes and characters I could have cared about-but without the development there just wasn't enough.

Andrea (7):  giving it the highest rating of the group found the book overall interesting and entertaining

Nans (N/A):  did not complete book at the time of our meeting

Lori (5):  I gave this book a rating of 5 because it was not what I thought it would be...in a bad way.  For someone who never reads book jackets, I finally did, got excited for the proposed plot, and than felt incredibly disappointed through the reading.  BOOO to false advertisement!!!

Linda (not the highest rating)  based strictly on the high-brow, yet interesting discussion of ours.

Thanks for coming everyone-see you next month!!!!

 Beautiful Creatures review

So at a smaller meeting last night, do to life arranging conflicts we met at Liz's house and discussed the book 'Beautiful Creatures'.  The general feel was that we all enjoyed the book, but found that a couple of days after reading it, we didn't remember as much as we had with previous books.

Leigh- 8, I pretty much read it in one feel swoop, would like to read the rest of the series.
Melissa- 6.5- liked it but didn't love it.
Nans- still working on the book, but enjoying it, she said.
Andrea-  5- Thought that there were a lot of dangling tidbits that needed to be better wrapped up and  that the lack of resolution on little issues throughout the book was frustrating.
Liz- I think deferred since she had read it when it first came out.
Michele- a weak 7 average, she gave one aspect a 6 and another an 8- no interest in reading the rest.
Maria- 7.5 enjoyed the book but felt it didn't stay with her, but tempted to read the rest of the series.
Ellen- busy chaperoning the very tiring 4 day field-trip.
Lori- 8 is currently reading the rest of the series.

Next meeting will be on May 2nd at 7:00, at my house discussing the book 'The Art Forger' by B. A. Shapiro.


Lori's Book for June is 'Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures' by Vincent Lam