Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons

Rating:
Summary: Loved this book
Review: I really loved this book. I laughed and cried and when I was finished reading, I felt like I had been a part of such a wonderful world. I really wanted the characters to be part of my book club (and also wished they were neighbors!) I loved the different narrators and subplots and how it covered 30 years of time so effortlessly. It was so interesting to learn about the different characters through their own story, then through other eyes as well. Can't wait for Landvik's next book!!
I also wanted to recommend another book that was similar in structure to this one: A SECRET WORD. Everyone in my book club loved it and the reading group guide and author Q&A were especially helpful.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but borderline cliche
Review: AHEB was a good book--really good. My only complaint about it is the problems, which are borderline cliche: troubled childhood, abusive husband, cheating husband, dark secrets, etc. It's an excellent book about friendships, but maybe problems that are more original and less...fictionalized.

Rating:
Summary: great story
Review: Each of the characters were pretty stereotypical (the abused wife, the single mother, the divorcee, etc.), but the setting and the plot is exactly my dream---to live in a great neighborhood with my best friends around me growing old together. It is fiction, so it's nice to slip into another world for a while. A quick read with funny and interesting twists and turns and very likeable characters.

Rating:
Summary: A fun book!
Review: I really enjoyed this book. Each chapter is told from a different point of view, and the characters are wonderful. I do wish that there would have been a little more talk about the books that they picked for their bookclub, but it didn't make me enjoy the book any less. I would compare this book to something like "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" just because the women in the book are so quirky and they have such a strong friendship. I definitely plan on reading more of Lorna Landvik's work in the future.


Rating:
Summary: More of a Russell Stover's than a Recchiuti
Review: I read this book in a book club, and found it a quick, enjoyable read. A nice novel about women and some men, who uplifted and supported each other over 3 decades. The book club in the novel is just a plot device to move the story forward in time and frame the chapters.

Some of the characters changed over the years, some-not so much. Some main characters were less lifelike than others, as if they were there simply to be foils for the more interesting ones. I found the peppy little redhead a bit tiresome, with her constant, knee-jerk superficial activism, and Mr. Paradise, though nice, was particulary unappealing. I still didn't see Merit's attraction to him. Merit's final confrontaion with her abusive ex-husband was a "you-go girl" moment, though, and a sheer delight. The gay couple's relationship could have used a little more clarifying, having left too many unanswered questions.

All in all, a good chick book-perfect for a plane ride.



Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: A great story of friendship and the joys and struggles throughout life. I had trouble putting it down. I loved those characters and knowing about their lives and friendships! A great read!!!

Rating:
Summary: Very entertaining
Review: I enjoyed this book from start to finish. I liked seeing the friendships grow over the years and how the friends helped each other through the crisis' the encountered throughout the years. It was even nice when the author introduced new characters into the mix such as Grant or Mr. Paradise. This is the first book of Ms. Landvik's that I've read, but it won't be the last.

Rating:
Summary: I didn't want it to end.
Review: The title refers to the tongue-in-cheek name these suburban book club members give to their group after a remark made by an angry husband. The ladies of this Minnesota cul-de-sac form a book club and a strong circle of friends during the turbulent 1960s. The book takes the reader through 30s years of raising children, marriages and friendships tested, secrets revealed, and of course, lots of books read.

Landvik writes like you're having a conversation with your best girlfriend, and gives us characters we can fall in love with. I was hooked from the first page, and did not want it to end.

Rating:
Summary: Friends and their struggles
Review: I did like this book, though I think the characters were, as some have mentioned here, somewhat stereotypical. They needed to be "fleshed out" a little more, given more dimension. I felt that the story lacked in some areas and things turned out as we would have expected.

I did however laugh out loud at some of the things that happened and enjoyed seeing the women bond the way that they did.

Not great fiction, but it did keep me reading to the end.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time!
Review: Let me begin by saying that I did not read this book expecting great literature, so at least in that respect I was not disappointed. However, I was disappointed to find that this book isn't even a good example of entertaining "chick lit". The characters were cliche; the premises were cliche; even the Bon-Bons in the title are cliche!! What I had hoped for was a look into the lives and relationships of "real" women, not overtly melodramatic whiners at the mercy of their circumstances. Some reviewers have said that this is a story of "strong women"--I wish it had been!! The only woman in this book that seemed even remotely convicted was Slip, yet she was the most annoying of all. The others merely reacted to life's ups and downs, and not in the way we would hope most of the time. Does anyone honestly believe that Merit would have left her abusive husband if the others hadn't found out about the abuse? Probably not! Would Kari have found meaning and purpose to her life if her niece hadn't conveniently given her a baby that she conveniently never wanted back? No! And why was it even mentioned that the child was bi-racial if there was no intention to use that information to cause conflict? That situation, and many others, offered so much potential had it been explored. Unfortunately, the author seemed to have lost her way long before then. Not only were these characters poorly-drawn, they all shared the same voice, and were merely attributed different catch-phrases. The characters were not believable, and Landvik should know that just because the characters cry every other page doesn't mean she has connected with the reader's empathy. Personally, I wished a hundred pages in that one of them would grow a backbone. I guess the title should have been "Weepy Housewives"! Better yet, "Weepy Democrat Housewives"! And if that is your political affiliation, the author has not done your party any favors by writing this weak, Republicans-are-the-root-of-all-evil drivel! Maybe next time the author should leave the politics out and write about something of which she knows a thing or two.