Quarantine Book Club: April - June 2021

April marked the start of our "Quarantine Book Club" schedule and it was and still is very popular amongst 6-7 women that regularly join and contribute to the discussions every month. I met Amanda and Nicole during my college days, and the rest of the attendees are family members and co-workers who pop in from time to time to comment on whichever book we read that month. 

Before we kicked off the group, I polled the members on what books they'd like to read for the 2021 year, based off of what Goodreads felt were the top-rated books of years' past.. We're wrapping up this year's Zoom Meetings and have already picked the books for next year's club, and I couldn't be more excited!

!!!! SPOILER ALERTS BELOW !!!!

April: Beach Read by Emily Henry - 3/5 Stars

We started our "year" off with Emily Henry's Contemporary Romance, Beach Read, and I'd have to say that it was just that.. I'm not much of a Romancer; Thrillers and Horror reads are more my speed, but it did its job as a romance novel and it made me feel things, briefly. I'm not heartless, but I feel I just see past the cookie-cutter, Hallmark movie regurgitations to know that this book was probably good for some people; it just didn't scratch my itch. Overall, the plot has some twists to it and kept me guessing momentarily, but I imagine if I stumbled upon this book at a beachside bookstore, it'd be the perfect read for lounging in the sun and blocking my face from potential sunburns. 

May: My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite - 4.5/5 Stars

The spoiler alert is in the title it feels like, because yes, the main character, Ayoola is a serial killer and her sister, Korede is always picking up the pieces of the mess Ayoola leaves behind. The whole book projects themes of a family-centric household whose values rely heavily on what surrounding neighbors and society members think of them. Every response Korede seems to receive from their overbearing Mother always hits with a hypothetical backhand of "Why weren't you there to help your sister?"

 
When all the while, Ayoola is just crazy, and Korede shouldn't have to mop up after her... literally and hypothetically. This was a good and quick read, that pulled me to ask myself... how far would I go to protect my family? I probably wouldn't cover up a murder or several murders... I just don't deserve to fall down that kind of never-ending, never-resurfacing, bottomless pit of despair. The chapters were really short and there was some dark humor, that I'm sure not all would appreciate, but in Korede's sarcastic mind of minds, I surely appreciated it, and heard her. 

June: The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell - 4.5/5 Stars

Lisa Jewell has actually become one of my favorite authors of the time, and not even because of this book, but due to her other thrillers that she's published. This book acted almost as a standalone, oddly, for it didn't feature any jump-scares or nail-bitting excerpts, rather I was deeply saddened by the heart-wrenching family narrative that unfolded before my eyes. The closest piece of pop culture that I could relate it to was Mike Flanagan's "Haunting of Hill House" (2018), which can be streamed on Netflix as a 10-episode mini-series exhibiting the trials and tribulations that a family of 7 experienced after purchasing a haunted home in their youth, and receiving backlash from that trauma later in life. 

I feel like I make this connection because the Mother-figures in both the show and Jewell's novel are both deeply ill and nobody in the family is able to recognize that until 'shit hits the fan' as they say. In a lot of ways, my heart went out to the siblings of this book, because I just rooted for them and wanted them to be happy. I think family members can have fallings out incidents and I'll agree my siblings and I haven't always gotten along, and thinking back on those points makes me sad. So perhaps, as the reader, I stuck myself into this narrative as a character reacting to the traumatic pieces, but isn't that what reading is anyway? 

Stay tuned for my reviews of the Quarantine Book Club's July - September picks in the next entry.