Kit & Clowder Book Club Month 2 - December/January 2015

Kit and Clowder Book Club

Kit and Clowder is a group on Facebook that has grown from the Kit and Clowder colouring classes and it is the best Facebook page that I belong to.  What started as a colouring support page has grown into a community of friends who support each other in numerous ways.

In November 2014 our illustrious leader Alyce Keegan needed a new book to read and it got her thinking "is anyone looking for a book to read as well?  Have you ever taken part in a bookclub?  I wonder if anyone would be interested to do something like that in here.".  The response was overwhelming so one was started.  We meet on the third weekend of the month to discuss the book and choose the new book around the same time.  The questions posed at our meetings are really interesting and thought provoking, making us look at the book in a deeper more considered way. If you would like to join an excellent group and read books as well come on over and join the fun.

For the first month Alyce chose the book (review to follow at a later date).  For subsequent months Alyce selects four books with a rating of 4 stars or more on Goodreads.  Alyce also provides a link to the book page in Goodreads so we can look at the reviews and the book blurb.  From those four we vote for the one we want to read.  The book with the most votes becomes the read for the month.

So in December we were given a choice of:

Book                            Votes

Gone Girl                         43   (I voted for this one)

The Help                          18

The Maze Runner         14

Hunger Games              12

Blurb:

Who are you?

What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?

Review:

I read this book as it was the choice made by my new book club.  I had not read any of the reviews until after reading and discussing the novel at the aforementioned book club.  That said I think the book I read is totally different to the book read by some other reviewers.  I am not sure why this is, perhaps I read too much for Netgalley and/or my expectations were too high for this lauded book.

This story is told through alternating points of view by Nick and Amy.  Initially the book is very lyrical.  This reader loved the bit where the interest is said to be like a dog that you occasionally throw kibble but as it turned out there was only one other place that the book was this lyrical.  Instead it turns into a smug, ploddy, verbose account of a disastrous marriage between two rich and highly unlikeable people.  

The reasoning behind the premise of the novel is too grim to contemplate; the main protagonist surely has a screw loose.  Neither character has any redeeming qualities which was obviously the author’s intention.  Are people really that self-centred and no-accountable for the events in their life? I suppose they are.  This reader wonders how many ‘normal’ readers would care to read about the trials and tribulations of a rich couple fallen on hard times?  Not this one.  Surely there should have been something that the reader could identify with and root for.  But the author is intent on making you root for the lesser of the two evils.

The interesting bit of this novel started to happen with only 20% to go.  This reader felt that too much time was spend on setting up for this 20% this means that the ending was rushed and that there was very little pay off for the amount of reading need to get to this point.  Why this novel was optioned and turned into a film is beyond this reader’s comprehension.  (That said this reader did watch the film and was equally non-plussed by that as they were by the book.)

In short had this book not been chosen by the book club it would probably have stayed on the bookshelf unread.

As you may have guessed, I did not like this book and so rated it as such on Goodreads.com (1 star) and Amazon.co.uk (2 stars).