discussion – Book Journey

When our book club was first chosen to be one of the groups that received ten copies of Joyce Maynard’s Labor Day to read and discuss our anticipation for the movie I was thrilled! I put out info on our Bookies Facebook page and sent it out by email… the first ten to commit to reading this book and discussing it at the end of our next book club meeting would get the books.

The Bookies went wild. 😀

Within a couple of hours I had the ten spots filled and more. Being the kind of awesome gals we are, we shared the books. A couple of us downloaded it on to our readers, in the end – 14 of the 18 Bookies read Labor Day. We had a few that could not make the discussion, one is in Florida (lucky gal) and one is preparing for a trip to Mexico (also lucky gal!) and one was out sick (poor gal!).

We tried our hand at creating a recipe to go with the book. I gave them the option of making the item, or creating the recipe. We had a mix of both. Amy P in our group came up with a Labor Day Lemonade (mmmmmmm), Angie created a recipe for Frozen Peach Lemonade for Labor Day, and Lori N created a Peach crisp that sounded heavenly.

Brenda brought a Cheesecake with a peach topping. Laura brought a homemade pie. I made a Labor Day Peach Slush that I called “Shake My Peach Tree” with frozen Mikes Hard Lemonade, a dry champagne, and (as I could not find fresh ones this time of year), canned peaches all blended and then put in an ice cream bucket to keep in the freezer until serving time (or… Labor Day!).

We drank and sampled the yummy desserts and discussed what we were excited about for the movie.

We discussed that we are excited about Josh Brolin playing Frank. In fact many said that is who they pictured as they read the book.

The opening scene when Frank finds Henry and Adele at the store is one that we are excited about. We are curious as to what that will look like when Frank first observes them, and feels that this will be a good choice for him to go with them.

The pie scene both in the book, and on the screen was a good discussion. First of all personally, I want to try my hand at making that pie… it was described so well that I think me (a non pie maker) may actually be able to do it. 😀 There is also something a little sexy about a man making a pie in the first place.

How they portray both Henry and Frank at different ages is also something we are looking forward to. We are thinking that we will get together for appetizers either before or after the movie when we go to do a little group bonding and either anticipating or recapping, depending on when we go.

A few of us pointed out having seen the movie trailer that Frank appears scary in the movie and Henry and Adele appear scared but fear is not the feeling you get from the book. It will be interesting how we interpret those feelings after we see the movie.

I have the recipes that we created to go with the book just not the time to post them this morning but they will be coming. 🙂 It was a fun discussion and we are looking forward to the movie! Thank you to Harper Collins for giving us this opportunity to chat about Labor Day.

Recently I feel as though I have hit a couple “must read” books that I just didn’t feel the love. I t starts out the same, I heard about the book through lets say:

Book friends
magazine
Book sites like shelf awareness
Book Blogs

The book sounds… well, AMAZING. The reviews are AWESOME. I read the synopsis and I can’t wait to get my hands on it! I then:

Purchase it from a book store
download it on to my NOOK
pick it up in audio from audible.com
cross my fingers and rub my lucky rabbits foot and hope I am offered it for review

And then I dive in… reading it or listening to it on audio….

and occasionally it happens….

it sucks. 😯

Ok, ok, maybe sucks is a strong word, but it doesn’t fit for you. It’s unclear, the characters are not developed well, you are lost within the story line with the first 30 minutes, it’s too long, it’s too short, the language makes you cringe, the crudeness makes you wonder why everyone raved about this book, in the end story lines are left wide open, there is no closure, there is too much closure, it quite possibly is… dull. (and by saying this I do not mean all of the above, I mean a book may be disliked for any one of these reasons… or well, yeah, all of them. 😀

You get my point.

And then, for those of us who review… you review.

I have noticed one of two things happening on these reviews. 1. You write your honest and truthful review. You are fair, you keep it light, you don’t use words like “it made me want to vomit” or “I could have thrown this book across the room, picked it up and thrown it again, preferably into a burning fire pit”, no instead at the end you may add warnings or be aware of: and you quietly and accurately list things to watch out for in the book if said book has things to watch out for (ie. language, crudeness, graphic).

and 2. You let it all hang out in the review. You put your emotion into it, you DO mention if it made you want to vomit or if you wanted it to burn in a fire pit. If you screamed or yelled or cried or groaned out loud… you say it.

Honestly, I tend to lean more towards #2 in my reviews. I like to know how a book affects people, even if it is negatively… I like a little spunk in my reviews…. 😛

So here are my questions: