Book Club April 2019- When You Read This

By: Mary Adkins
Published Year: 2019
Publisher: Harper
Pages: 276

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Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Iris Massey is gone. 
But she’s left something behind.

For four years, Iris Massey worked side by side with PR maven Smith Simonyi, helping clients perfect their brands. But Iris has died, taken by terminal illness at only thirty-three. Adrift without his friend and colleague, Smith is surprised to discover that in her last six months, Iris created a blog filled with sharp and often funny musings on the end of a life not quite fulfilled. She also made one final request: for Smith to get her posts published as a book. With the help of his charmingly eager, if overbearingly forthright, new intern Carl, Smith tackles the task of fulfilling Iris’s last wish.

Before he can do so, though, he must get the approval of Iris’ big sister Jade, an haute cuisine chef who’s been knocked sideways by her loss. Each carrying their own baggage, Smith and Jade end up on a collision course with their own unresolved pasts and with each other.

Told in a series of e-mails, blog posts, online therapy submissions, text messages, legal correspondence, home-rental bookings, and other snippets of our virtual lives, When You Read This is a deft, captivating romantic comedy—funny, tragic, surprising, and bittersweet—that candidly reveals how we find new beginnings after loss.

What I thought

This is an epistolary novel about a 33-year old woman who is diagnosed with terminal cancer and how her boss and sister get along after she has died. The book is told through old blog posts that Iris wrote as she was dying, emails between Smith (Iris’ boss) and Jade (Iris’ sister) and a few other various emails.

Smith’s assistant finds a copy of Iris’ death blog printed out with a hand written note on it asking Smith to publish it after she dies, so he is dealing with that in addition to dealing with her death.

Now, I love epistolary novels. Almost as much as I love saying the word “epistolary”. My love for them was sparked by Meg Cabot’s novel, Every Boy’s Got One. Since then, I have held every novel of this type to the standards of that one. Cabot wrote an amazing novel that allowed me to fall in love with multiple characters as well as see and related to a romance.

Unfortunately, this novel did not reach my standards. While it was entertaining enough to be a quick 24-hour read, I didn’t like any of the characters. I found everyone to be self-centered with little to no redeeming qualities. There was sort of a romance between Smith and Jade, which was just as flat as it was predictable.

I did enjoy Iris’ blog posts. They found a good balance between tragic, insightful, and light. I actually liked seeing Smith and Jade through Iris’ blog a lot more than through their emails. I just felt like I couldn’t connect to anyone, and if you can’t connect to people through their personal emails and therapy reports, then how are you ever going to connect to them?

What Book Club Thought

Everyone was all over the place with this one. We had one person who enjoyed it, another who disliked it, and then I was kind of in the middle. The interesting discussion that we had was regarding the tone of the novel and whether or not it would’ve been better as a typical novel instead of told through emails. It sparked some conversation about the back and forth between the seriousness of Iris’s death and the sillier tone of Carl the assistant, which led to talking about truly how much happened in this book. We ultimately decided that we felt like there was a lot that happened and a lot of heavier topics that just didn’t get the attention they deserved due in part to the writing style but also that amount that was going on. Another interesting point that was brought up was whether or not we felt like Iris’s blog actually deserved to be published or would have made a good book.

Overall, even though I wasn’t crazy about this book, it made for some interesting discussion, so I ended up enjoying it as a book club pick.

Bookshop at Watersend

By: Patti Callahan Henry
Published Year: 2017
Publisher: Berkley Books
Pages: 352

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way shape or form influenced my opinion.

Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Bonny Blankenship's most treasured memories are of idyllic summers spent in Watersend, South Carolina, with her best friend, Lainey McKay. Amid the sand dunes and oak trees draped with Spanish moss, they swam and wished for happy-ever-afters, then escaped to the local bookshop to read and whisper in the glorious cool silence. Until the night that changed everything, the night that Lainey's mother disappeared.

Now, in her early fifties, Bonny is desperate to clear her head after a tragic mistake threatens her career as an emergency room doctor, and her marriage crumbles around her. With her troubled teenage daughter, Piper, in tow, she goes back to the beloved river house, where she is soon joined by Lainey and her two young children. During lazy summer days and magical nights, they reunite with bookshop owner Mimi, who is tangled with the past and its mysteries. As the three women cling to a fragile peace, buried secrets and long ago loves return like the tide.

First Impression

If a book has “bookshop” in the title it immediately lands on my radar. This cover is the perfect summer cover and drew me in. This book made a solid first impression and I immediately would’ve picked it up off the shelf based on the cover alone.

What I thought

This book was so cute! It was the perfect summer beach read and exactly what I needed.

Bonny and Lainey are lifelong friends who started as Summer Sisters at the age of eleven. Now in their fifties, Bonny is having a bit of a life crisis. Her marriage and job are falling apart, so Lainey suggests that she return to the summer home that they haven’t been to since they were 13. Bonny brings her 19 year old daughter Piper who is also having a bit of a life crisis. When Bonny, Lainey, and Piper head back to Watersend for the first time in 40+ years, their past catches up with them and they are all forced to face themselves.

This book is told in alternating points of view between Bonny, Lainey, and Piper with an occasional perspective from Mimi the bookshop owner. While my favorite perspective was Piper’s, because she’s the closest to my age, but I still enjoyed Bonny and Lainey’s stories. Each character had their own issues that they had to confront and I liked that it was really about personal growth. There wasn’t a lot of silly issues that got in the way of bigger issues and I really appreciated that.

What I enjoyed the most about this story was the writing. It drew me in and made me feel like I was at the river house and that I was a part of their vacation. I also found that the balance between the present and the past to be perfect. I never felt like I was stuck in the past stories and wanting to get back to what was currently happening, but at the same time I never felt like I was only getting the present storyline and was confused as to what the past had to do with anything.

If you enjoy summertime stories about family and personal growth this will be the perfect read for you. I loved the balance of the storylines and how they were so different amongst themselves. I’d highly recommend this as a beach read and am looking forward to reading more by this author.