April 2017 - The Dry by Jane Harper

The Dry by Jane Harper is one of those debut novels which came out of nowhere and generated a whole lot of hype. It is richly deserved. This book is easy to read and the plot line is fairly simple, but almost all of us were drawn into the story. For Anna this was a real departure from what she usually reads, but she surprised herself by how much she enjoyed it.

There are plenty of sites out there that provide a summary of the plot, so I won't rehash it here. Needless to say we could all visualize the township of Kiewarra and its inhabitants. The power of Harper's writing is in its descriptions. We discussed the fact that possibly only Australians would truly understand how big an impact the ongoing dry would have on this little country town, and how easy it would be for the residents to believe the worst of Luke Halder. This small town also has its share of secrets, current and past and explores the nature of trust.

Scores:
Alison    9
Anna     10
Annette  8
Carmel   7
Glenda   7
Kristy     8
Megan    5

Average: 7.7

March 2017 - Small Island by Andrea Levy

March saw us reading Small Island by Andrea Levy. This was a tough read: the quality of the writing was high but the subject matter was often quite challenging and upsetting. Two of us didn't make it to the end because we just weren't enjoying the story and found it too depressing. However, Annette thought that even though it was an uncomfortable read it was definitely worth persevering.

Small Island follows the lives of 4 different characters during and immediately after World War II. Hortense and Gilbert are Jamaican, Queenie and Bernard are English. Most of the storyline takes place in England, though parts are told in Jamaica and India as well. All four character's voices are believable and vibrant and each character is forced to sink or swim in post-WWII England. Despite fighting for the British in the war, the Jamaican ex-servicemen were left with no opportunities. Racism is rampant in this story, and the author based it on the real-life experiences of her parents.

Scores:
Anna      5
Annette  10
Carmel   8
Deb        10
Kristy     7
Megan    8

Average: 8

February 2017 - The Spy by Paulo Coelho

The Spy is a fictionalised account of the life and death of Mata Hari. For a famously notorious figure, most of us didn't know much about her. This was quite a short read and some club members found it an engrossing story. Others (such as myself) did not even finish, despite it's small page count!

The story is told mainly from Mata Hari's point of view, based on letters she sent to her lawyer whilst imprisoned on treason charges. Coelho attempts to just tell the facts without any judgement, but how reliable is her story? It is fiction, not an autobiography, and the lines become a bit blurred.

Ultimately, she was a woman different to others of her time. Was she really a spy? Who knows!

Scores:
Allison    5
Anna      8
Annette  7
Carmel   8
Cheryl    7
Deb        8
Glenda   6
Kirrily    8
Krristy     4
Megan    6
Phil         8

Average: 6.8

December-January 2017- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Our big read for the summer break was the Pulitzer Prize winner for 2015, All the Light We Cannot See. This is yet another book based on World War II, however it looks at the conflict from a different perspective. The two main protagonists are teenagers. One is a blind French girl named Marie-Laure, the other an orphaned boy pushed through the German war-machine named Werner.

It was refreshing to see a depiction of WWII from the German perspective, and which didn't revolve around the unquestionable horrors of the Holocaust. This book is based on the occupation of France, is centered around Saint-Malo on the Breton coast, and contains horrors aplenty.

Our discussion turned to the fact that this war still continues to resonate with people; so many stories are still being written about it. Later generations have no experience of the suffering that so many people went through. Cheryl put it succinctly- how on earth did anyone survive the horror of WWII? The experience of war changes people, as we see through the story's characters.

It scored well and some of us loved it. There were some negatives, however. The drawn out ending ruined the story for Megan, and Annette thought it was too contrived and felt like a soap opera.

Scores:
Allison- 7
Anna- 10
Annette- 5
Carmel- 10
Cheryl- 7
Glenda- 8
Kirrily- 7
Kristy- 10
Megan- 7
Phil- 9

Average: 8.0

October 2016 - This House of Grief by Helen Garner

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Only 3 members met at Phil's house to discuss This House of Grief. We were all a bit bemused by the fact that Donald Trump had just been elected POTUS, and probably spent a fair chunk of time discussing the future of world affairs as well as the book

The book starts like a fairy-tale- "Once there was a hard-working bloke who lived in a small Victorian country town with his wife and their three young sons..."

Unfortunately this family's story has no fairy-tale ending. The three young sons end up dead and the hard-working bloke is put on trial for their murders. For a book with such tragic subject matter it was surprisingly easy to read and, in parts, quite gripping. The reader is right there in the court gallery with Garner as she vacillates between disbelief that a parent could deliberately drive his 3 sons into a dam, sympathy for the pathetic figure that Rob Farquharson cuts in the courtroom, and certainty that the evidence cannot be wrong.

This book is an interesting commentary on the judicial system and whether or not it is possible to ever discover 'the truth'. The personalities of those in the courtroom had a huge impact on Garner and what she believed; from the barristers, witnesses, Rob Farquharson, Cindy Gambino and her grieving family, as well as the corp of journalists covering the story from the gallery. Can a writer ever be an impartial observer and commentator, or do personal impressions, assumptions and prejudices always intrude? Can anyone ever assess the evidence before them and know without a doubt 'the truth'?

This House of Grief was thought provoking and enjoyed by all of us.

Scores:
Cheryl- 8
Kristy- 7
Phil- 7

Average: 7.3