BOOK: Angry Housewives Eating Bonbons by Lorna Landvik

Angry Housewives Eating Bonbons by Lorna Landvik

another something about me book, chunkster challenge 2
Minnesota book in the Booking Around the 50 States challenge

another something about me challenge book, chunkster challenge 2

I didn't even realize that this would qualify as a chunkster, but it had over 480 pages, so it just makes it in. The back cover sums up this book quite well - 'a guilty pleasure' and a 'light snappy read.' It reminds me of the type of books I read in the 1980s by Judith Krantz, the beginnings of the chick lit genre. It is a sweeping book, covering forty years of five friends, set in Minnesota. The friends, all quite different, form a book club to get through the sixties and seventies when women needed more intellectual stimulation than they could get as stay at home moms, or housewives as they were known. Each has a very different personality but they support each other through life changes, husbands and kids, plus secrets they are keeping. There is nothing too sinister or terrible happening here, but life in general. Imagine Wisteria Lane lite.

It took me a little while to keep all the characters straight, but they are quite different and physically described enough to make an impression. My biggest complaint was the point of view and the time line. The book is divided into many sections, according to their book of the month, and each section gets a different narrator, sometimes in the first person, sometimes third, and sometimes it seemed to change part way through the section. It allowed each woman to get her story told but it felt a little jumpy. And the years would jump dramatically within sections at times.

But all in all, what I would call a beach book - easy to pick up and set down, easy to follow with different story lines and well defined characters and interesting plots, if somewhat predictable. You can't complain too much about a book like this, because it is what it is - a guilty pleasure, an easy read. This could have qualified for my themed reading challenge, because books play an important part of the story line.

Tinylittlelibrarian picked it for her book in the Something About Me challenge because I belong to a book club of great women, like the ladies in this book. And this was one of the few books that all of our members really enjoyed. Also, it's set in Minnesota, which is where my husband's from and I love visiting there every summer. Since two of her picks were two of my all time favorite books - Anne and Bridget, I really wanted to read one of her picks and I am so glad I did. I was able to think about her while I was reading, and wonder which angry housewife she is!