The Lace Reader was my latest book club book. I actually chose the book because it had been on my list of books I wanted to read for awhile and I had seen something about the Salem Witch Trials recently and this book takes place in Salem, Mass.
But first, as an aside, I'm getting pretty sick of my book club. The gal who organized the whole group has probably not read the book in the last 6 months at least. She always tells us something else she's read recently but it's never that month's book. So if you have time to read, why are you never reading our group selections? While I don't think it's required that a person read the book to attend our meeting, what always happens is that she starts it like two days before our meeting so she's just barely into it and then she either asks us not to spoil it or we feel guilty spoiling it as she intends to finish it eventually. That leaves us with trying to talk about events only up to as far as she's read. I'm just getting aggravated now that it's been going on for months because I bust my ass to finish the books that are selected, even ones I don't enjoy, so I can at least talk with the group and she seems to not even try to finish them. It's a recurring pattern with her. So what happened is that I wanted to talk about the book because it's got a lot of interesting events that take place but we couldn't really talk about it. Ugh.
Anyway, this book had a lot to talk about because there were some interesting twists. The main character is clearly crazy, or at least has had a history of mental illness, so she's not especially credible so it's an interesting way to tell a story. You're always kind of wondering if what she's describing is really happening or not. It's got some mystery, some romance, some magical qualities (for instance, the lace reading itself is a type of fortune-telling), a villain.... so a little bit of everything. I wasn't sure as I was reading it if I liked it or not - there are some slow spots - but it really stuck with me afterwards, even now that it's been a week later, so I think that means I did like it. It stuck with me in that I was wondering how the characters were doing and their "voice" was one I missed once I put the book down. I guess it's been optioned into a movie so I'll look forward to seeing that when it's released. I'd recommend it.
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