It’s the Monday after Mother’s Day, and I’m writing this on the fly, as I have to leave for my book club meeting in a few minutes.
The book we will be discussing is The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell, the perfect book to read right before Mother’s Day, as it focuses on a dysfunctional British family living in the Cotswolds, where the mother is the central character. Lorelei Bird is a slight, beautiful hippie-type who loves all things colourful. Her favourite holiday is Easter, and she looks forward every year to organizing a traditional Easter Egg Hunt in their backyard, even when her own children are too old to enjoy such things. She is married to a somewhat bland university professor named Colin, and has four children, Megan, Bethan and twins Rory and Rhys. All seems right with the world, although Lorelei has a tendency to save everything. But when, one Easter, the unthinkable happens, everything the Birds have come to expect comes crashing down. Each member has their own way of coping, and Lorelei’s is to shut out reality and hoard things even more than usual. Their traditional family structure unravels, and what ensues is an exploration into dysfunctional family dynamics to the max. I don’t want to give anything else away, as part of the draw of reading this book is the discovery of the next “family development”. I’m curious to hear what my book club friends will have to say, as there is certainly a lot to discuss in this book. I love Lisa Jewell’s books, which remind me of a “lighter” version of Liane Moriarty, and I was thrilled to discover that this was one I had not already read. It was definitely “unputdownable”, if a bit too contrived and unbelievable. I would still recommend Jewell’s books to anyone who is a fan of domestic fiction of the Liane Moriarty type.
That’s all for tonight.
Bye for now…Julie
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