Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons

Rating:
Summary: Just like The Saving Graces
Review: I loved this book about women and their friendships. However, I just finished reading "The Saving Graces" by Patricia Gaffney printed in 1999 and I'm now wondering if Lorna Landvik "copied" Housewives from Gaffney's book. They are so similar it's kind of disturbing.

Rating:
Summary: Landvik betrays talent in predictable, uninspired pot-boiler
Review: At first glance, Lorna Landvik's best-selling "Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons" has all the ingredients of a memorable novel. Featuring intriguing characters, exploring complicated themes and embracing nearly forty years of women confronting the arcs of their lives, the novel could have blended feminist sensibilities, intellectual curiosity and social consciousness. Instead, seemingly aware that the novel would be an instantaneous hit, Landvik created a predictable pot-boiler that not only betrays her talent as a writer but sadly trivializes the very themes and ideas that are important to her.

Five Minneapolis women find themselves bound to each other by their shared passion for books. Faith, Audrey, Merit, Slip and Kari become real to each other not only through the literature they choose to share but by the texture of their lives. The novel follows the five women from the 1960s to the turn of the twenty-first century. While permitting them the necessary time and space to evolve, Landvik conveniently compels them to face every conceivable social change and personal dilemma a woman could face. By the time the five have confronted hidden childhood trauma, adultery, homosexuality, adoption and spousal abuse, the reader feels as bloated as the women must have been after eating the calorie-laden desserts which seem to receive even more attention from the author than the books selected by each participant.

To Landvik's credit, she permits her characters to grapple with both personal and social issues. There is mess, anguish and elation as the five confront the core circumstances of their lives. Yet, the reader knows, just as soon as a tough dilemma shows itself, that there will be a kind resolution. In this sense, "Angry Housewives" is a false novel. Every heartbreak is followed by a rainbow-like resolution; there is never any doubt that "happy ever after" is the absolute focus of the novel.

Even its most provocative character, Faith, whose tormented childhood has compelled her to invent a fictive past, never invites readers to consider what could have happened had she lived her entire life submerged by guilt. Instead, her catharsis lacks only violins in the background when she confronts blighted hopes and limited horizons. Landvik's writing languishes as well. Her use of metaphors comes from the golly-gee-whiz school and would be red-lined by any conscientious middle school composition teacher.

"Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons" is a harmless enough concoction. It permits readers to think they are living through feminist angst and genuine personality development. It tantalizes us by making readers believe that they are genuinely involved in the lives of five fascinating women. It presents a pasteurized version of significant social upheaval of the past half century. But it does so in a manner so pat, so comfortable that the reader never worry about true anger, true power.

Gone are the complicated characters which populate "Patty Jane's House of Curl." Instead, Lorna Landvik has capitalized on her deserved popularity with a homogenized version of life, sure to catapult the novel to popularity, but at the cost of authenticity.

Rating:
Summary: Obnoxious Housewives Writing Novels
Review: I am a (sometimes) angry housewife who eats bon bons. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone with an above 8th grade reading level. If you were raised on fine literature, please do not waste your time with this book. I read this as part of a local book club, one I joined to be social and to expand my literary horizons. The book is tripe, written for women looking to take a breather from romance novels and cheesy self-help books.

Ms. Landvik clearly keeps many index card files full of hokey metaphors which she slathers liberally all over the book. Holy Contrived Characters, the only difference between the parlance of the women in this novel is that Landvik keeps bashing our heads with reminders of this one or that one being "the kind of person who.." The book club offerings (the book is about suburban housewives in a book club) have nothing to do with what happens in each chapter and is another inane and cutesy contrivance concocted by the author to appear authorial. Run away!!!

Rating:
Summary: My first Landvik book and I'm here looking for more!
Review: One of the best "woman's" fiction real life books! You KNOW these women, you are these women, you want to be (in some cases) these women. Can't wait to read more of this authors books. Hope they are all as good as this one!

Rating:
Summary: Better than Rebecca Wells
Review: While there are many, many authors writing about women's friendships over the years, this is the one that sticks with me. Yes, every cliche is mined. Yes, the plot reads like a fairy tale (problems always get resolved by the efforts of the friends themselves.) Yes, there's a lot here that's simply unrealistic. HOWEVER (and this is a bit one), the book's essential sappiness is ironically what pulls it above the rest. Cliches become so because they were at one time true, and the fact that friendship lasts, triumphs, and gives us strength shines out from every cliched page. It's nice sometimes to read something that doesn't try to be more than what it is, and this novel is a good example of an entertaining read with an unpretentious, unfashionably upbeat theme.

Rating:
Summary: Comfort reading
Review: This book is the literary equivalent of a warm bubble bath, vanilla-scented candles, and comfort food.

And there is nothing wrong with that. Absolutely nothing at all. In fact, there is a lot right with it.

Sometimes a little comfort is exactly what you need. A little escapism, a little feel-good story, a smile or two, a happy ending (or five). Not to be sneezed at. Nicely done, Ms. Landvik.

Rating:
Summary: The world's most perfect children
Review: Perhaps Lorna Landvik is not a parent so she doesn't realize that no group of children is as perfect as the Freesia Court children. Julia is biracial and adopted and floats thru life until she has a minor setback at 27. Bonnie is brilliant and apparently never talks back to her mother. Merit's girls are beautiful, talented, etc. and seem to suffer no problems due to the relationship of their parents. Even Beau is movie star handsome and finds the ideal mate. One of Audrey's sons does get into a little trouble, but it is not dealt with in this book. The husbands are either wonderful or horrible. There is no middle ground and no working through the ordinary problems that most couples face. These are all two dimensional characters and about as interesting as wallpaper.

Rating:
Summary: Okay reading, too many characters and issues
Review: This book is a fast, light read. Ms. Landvik tells a good story but I had several issues:

- Point of View (POV): There are six POVs in this book, some in first and some in third. The author isn't consistent in POVs throughout a chapter, and the jumps to other characters can be difficult to follow.
- Plot: Every plot line except the kitchen sink is thrown into this novel. Issues include spousal abuse, alcoholism, drug use, race relations, war, peace protests, car accidents, adultery, infertility, homosexuality, AIDS, and cancer. A crisis arises, it's dealt with, and the story moves on to another crisis. The author could have trimmed the scope and characters and focused more on a smaller list of issues.
- Slip: Slip was the most annoying character. The woman never met a rally she couldn't protest or a gathering she couldn't crash. Her political preaching was over the top. Standing up for the proletariat? Wouldn't the failure of socialism in the USSR, North Korea, Cuba, in fact every country it's been attempted, encourage the author to leave this plot line out of the novel? I nearly put the book down several times because all Republicans were portrayed as uptight and bad, and all Democrats (of course, all the characters are Democrats) were fun and good.
- Vietnam: The recycling of the psychologically-damaged Vietnam veteran was also irritating. Does Ms. Landvik know any men who actually served in Vietnam? I know several, including a medic who saw truly horrific fights and wounds, and all these men lead normal lives. All war leaves scars, both mental and physical, but most Vietnam veterans didn't come home and drift through life, lost. Every vet in this novel is a basketcase, unable to function in life.

I enjoyed parts of the story, but I wouldn't consider it a great book. There are more enjoyable books that deal with women's issues without throwing in EVERY problem. I recommend Fried Green Tomatoes.

Rating:
Summary: Can't go wrong with this one
Review: This book, along with Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, are two that you don't want to miss. The characters are wonderful and so full of life. Don't miss this one.

Also recommended: McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD

Rating:
Summary: over rated
Review: I agree with the NY reader - a waste of time. I waited on the library reserve list for months and was very disappointed. The characters are not well developed and the writing is amateurish. I did finish it because I was curious about how it could get such rave reviews but found it a 'women's' book. The "holy whatever" comments of one character were idiotic. Can't fathom how anyone could say it's the best book they ever read.For a good read try Alison McGee's Shadow Baby, Losing Julia, or Peace Like a River.