bibliophile [angry house wives eating bon bons]

Another weird title, another fun read.

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, Lorna Landvik

This was my book club's second read, after Orphan Master's Son. It was almost equally long, but a bit lighter in content: the story follows the lives of 5 book clubbers, all married and living in Minnesota. Here, a blurb can do it better than I can:

Five friends live through three decades of marriages, child raising, neighborhood parties, bad husbands and good brownies-and Landvik doesn't miss a single cliche as she chronicles their lives in this pleasant but wholly familiar novel of female bonding. Their personal dramas are regularly punctuated by reflections on political milestones ("First Martin Luther King, Jr., then Bobby Kennedy. As if we didn't have enough to worry about with this stupid war..."). While some scenes are touching and genuinely funny, readers of Fannie Flagg, Rita Mae Brown, Rebecca Wells and many imitators will feel that they've seen this before.

I actually wasn't as moved with this as I was with The Supremes, although they're a similar story line. My biggest complaint is the predictability- I was never bored, but I often saw where things were going. Seriously, every plot line you can imagine is in here: AIDS, war, infidelity, homosexuality, PTSD, cancer, abuse, alcoholism, the kitchen sink, divided among 6 (!!) different narrators. And amazingly, every one of these issues get's resolved in a the best way! Hooray!

I'm being flippant. It was fun to read and I enjoyed it, perfect for a beach read with your girlfriends, but I just don't think it invited too much conversation...then again, I was sick on book club night, so perhaps the debate was lively and varied. That's what I get for catching a bad cold.