How to Read a Book: A Novel by Monica Wood

 

We gathered in March to discuss Liz's selection: How to Read a Book: A Novel by Monica Wood. In the story, there are three narrative voices: Violet, a young woman who has just been released from prison for manslaughter, Harriet, a retired English teacher in her 60s who is running a bookclub at the prison, and Frank, a recently-widowed man trying to recover from the tragedy of his wife's death. The author adeptly interweaves the storylines of these three main characters resulting in a satisfying tale about making mistakes, redefining ourselves, forgiving, and creating our own communities and families.

The book was well-liked by all. We enjoyed the characters, plot, inspirational message and even the talking parrots. We liked seeing the development of Violet from an insecure ex-prisoner to a strong woman with purpose, work ethic, and sense of self respect. Although it was painful to witness her relationship with a university professor because of the skewed power dynamics, we understood that it was a necessary element for the plot. We also agreed that we liked Harriet (nicknamed Bookie) and her perspective on reading books, namely an insight into perceiving the meanwhile of what's happening that isn't necessarily written about explicitly. All that said, we did feel that some of the characters demonstrated behavior that was too idealistic and therefore a bit unbelievable. Frank was an example of this as he was a bit too nice to be realistic. We also didn't buy that his daughter would show forgiveness at the end. But we let these things slide because we liked the book. :-)

We engaged in some extensive conversation about animal communication, since parrots were an integral part of the book. The author included a description of actual research on African Greys that she drew from in order to accurately write about the birds in her book. It turns about that Cathy loves African Greys! As usual, we also talked about many other topics including parents, college applications, homes, and other novels. By the end, I think we DID feel we had better insight into how to read book.