Weekly Reader: The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble; A Great Book About the Importance of Reading and Friendship

Weekly Reader: The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble; A Great Book About the Importance of Reading and Friendship
By Julie Sara Porter, Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers Ahead: Reading Groups and Book Clubs are great ways to share a love of books and also great ways to build friendships based on a mutual love of reading. Elizabeth Noble captures that friendship in her novel which explores a year in the lives of five English women as they discuss books and deal with the problems with the men, children, and other family members in their lives.

Each chapter begins with a synopsis of the book that the women are discussing and their spirited discussions about the books. The books that are discussed vary from Heartburn by Nora Ephron, My Antonia by Willa Cather, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, to The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier among others.

The women are honest, frank, and up front about the books, what they like and don't like, and how they relate to the books.
Their opinions differ from "I think she is definitely the most vivid, the most extraordinary woman character I can ever remember reading."(The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle) to "It had everything, drama, tension, mystery, rugged hero, arch villain." "You're making one of the great Gothic novels of all time sound like James Bond." (Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier) to "I want a word with the twenty million people whose lives were changed by reading this book, according to the blurb on the back."(The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho-ouch).

Besides being simply a catalog of other books and other people's opinions of them, Noble doesn't lose track with her characters and their stories. The members of the group come to these books with their own baggage and concerns which they relate to the other members of the group.

There's Harriet, a mid-30's wife and mother who feels suffocated by her seemingly happy marriage and wondering for another life out there. Nicole, a stylish book editor and Harriet's best friend is suffering from an unhappy marriage with a frequent philandering husband. Polly is a 40ish single mother who has to deal with a rocky engagement and her daughter's pregnancy. Susan, Polly's best friend, is in conflict with her aging mother and estranged sister. Clare, the daughter of Susan's co-worker, is a midwife who longs for a child of her own.

Noble's characters are identifiable and relatable. They could be people we know like Harriet who has definite opinions about what she reads (Books about women by women) and the men in her life (exciting with some drama) and don't realize how good they have it until they are threatened with losing it from the injury of a child to the separation from a spouse. Harriet then makes the right decision to bring her family back together.

 We may also know many people like Nicole who are attractive and seem to live a successful happy life and are determined to keep it that way despite all evidence to the contrary, such a having an unwise pregnancy to keep her husband who has no interest in staying. (The resolution to this conflict is both moving when the pregnancy is terminated and ultimately satisfying when she stands up to her husband). These are real characters going through these difficult times.

There are plot points that don't work so well. The resolution to Susan's conflicts with her mother and sister comes out from nowhere and asks more questions than provides answers, though brings Susan and her sister together.
Clare disappears halfway from the book. She drops out of the group after discovering her husband impregnated one of his students, who happens to be Polly's daughter, Cressida. While it is natural in real life for people to drop from book clubs (albeit usually for less dramatic reasons), in fiction, a character's disappearance cries out for a real solution to their problem that is offered more than just by second hand dialogue. (Though she does well for herself working in a Children's Hospital in Romania and starting her own Book Club.)
The final chapter rushes all of the relationships quickly in an almost mad dash to the altar or the maternity ward to give all the characters a happy ending.

However, the characters' lives are transformed by the power of their friendship and the books. This point is made when one of the characters observe that all the books they read feature women who take control of their lives. They learn that they-Harriet, Nicole, Polly, Susan, and Clare- are those women.