6.22.2012

Book Club Friday

I took a little time off from reading in June.  I just had so much going on with Taft's big birthday party and family visiting that I didn't get to sit and open a book.  Hopefully I will have more time in July.

This week I read:

Description from Goodreads:
This stunning new novel from Tatiana de Rosnay, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Sarah’s Key, plumbs the depths of complex family relationships and the power of a past secret to change everything in the present.
It all began with a simple seaside vacation, a brother and sister recapturing their childhood. Antoine Rey thought he had the perfect surprise for his sister Mélanie’s birthday: a weekend by the sea at Noirmoutier Island, where the pair spent many happy childhood summers playing on the beach. It had been too long, Antoine thought, since they’d returned to the island—over thirty years, since their mother died and the family holidays ceased. But the island’s haunting beauty triggers more than happy memories; it reminds Mélanie of something unexpected and deeply disturbing about their last island summer. When, on the drive home to Paris, she finally summons the courage to reveal what she knows to Antoine, her emotions overcome her and she loses control of the car.
Recovering from the accident in a nearby hospital, Mélanie tries to recall what caused her to crash. Antoine encounters an unexpected ally: sexy, streetwise Angèle, a mortician who will teach him new meanings for the words life, love and death. Suddenly, however, the past comes swinging back at both siblings, burdened with a dark truth about their mother, Clarisse.
Trapped in the wake of a shocking family secret shrouded by taboo, Antoine must confront his past and also his troubled relationships with his own children. How well does he really know his mother, his children, even himself? Suddenly fragile on all fronts as a son, a husband, a brother and a father, Antoine Rey will learn the truth about his family and himself the hard way. By turns thrilling, seductive and destructive, with a lingering effect that is bittersweet and redeeming, A Secret Kept is the story of a modern family, the invisible ties that hold it together, and the impact it has throughout life.
 
My thoughts:
I loved Sarah's Key so I knew that I wanted to give this book a chance.  It started a little slow and I stopped reading it for a few weeks.  When I picked it back up, I really liked it.  Melanie is taken to the location of her last family vacation while her mother was living, by her brother for her 40th birthday.  She at first remembers nothing but as they stay there, the memories come back for both of the siblings.
Melanie is in an accident and it leads to her brother, Antoine, looking into his mothers death.  They find out lots about there mother and their family.
I really liked the book.  It is not an all time favorite, but it was well written and kept me thinking and wanting to know all the secrets that they could find. 
 
I also read:
Description from Goodreads:
Friendship, loyalty, and love lie at the heart of Meg Waite Clayton’s beautifully written, poignant, and sweeping novel of five women who, over the course of four decades, come to redefine what it means to be family.
For thirty-five years, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally have met every Wednesday at the park near their homes in Palo Alto, California. Defined when they first meet by what their husbands do, the young homemakers and mothers are far removed from the Summer of Love that has enveloped most of the Bay Area in 1967. These “Wednesday Sisters” seem to have little in common: Frankie is a timid transplant from Chicago, brutally blunt Linda is a remarkable athlete, Kath is a Kentucky debutante, quiet Ally has a secret, and quirky, ultra-intelligent Brett wears little white gloves with her miniskirts. But they are bonded by a shared love of both literature–Fitzgerald, Eliot, Austen, du Maurier, Plath, and Dickens–and the Miss America Pageant, which they watch together every year.
As the years roll on and their children grow, the quintet forms a writers circle to express their hopes and dreams through poems, stories, and, eventually, books. Along the way, they experience history in the making: Vietnam, the race for the moon, and a women’s movement that challenges everything they have ever thought about themselves, while at the same time supporting one another through changes in their personal lives brought on by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success.
Humorous and moving, The Wednesday Sisters is a literary feast for book lovers that earns a place among those popular works that honor the joyful, mysterious, unbreakable bonds between friends.
 
My Thoughts:
I loved this book.  These girls seem to have nothing in common.  They are from different parts of the country and have different lifestyles, but they all met at the park since they have young children.  They do love the Miss American Pageant and watch it together and that is when one of the girls tells them that she wishes she were a writer.  Soon after, they all begin writing in journals and sharing their thoughts and dreams.  It is really a book about the wonderful bond that friends have and how they stick together. 
I would completely recommend this book to anyone.  Now I believe that I am going to try to get another book from Meg Waite Clayton. 

I am linking up with Blonde, Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday. 
For other books that I have read and reviewed, click here.

8 comments:

  1. great books! i agree, sarah's key was way better :)

    i think i read the wednesday sisters a long time ago,but it still sounds intriguing!

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    1. I did like Sarah's Key better but that book still kinda haunts me.

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  2. I like the sounds of Wednesday Sisters, sort of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood/Travelling Pants. Thanks for the reviews!

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    1. It is a little Ya-Ya/Traveling Pants. I didn't really think about that until you commented. ;0

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  3. I have "A secret kept" and "Sarah's key" in my bookshelf but haven't read them yet. What a shame.

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    1. You so need to read Sarah's Key. It really is a great book.

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  4. Loved Sarahs Key and I have A Secret Kept to read after I finish The Paris Wife.
    I'll have to look into the Wednesday Sisters too.

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  5. I really loved Sarah's Key as well, but I've yet to read anything else by Tatiana de Rosnay. Eventually though I'd love to read the other two books she's written.

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