Thank you to Lynda for the following summary of our discussion.
Most people liked the book, some really liked it and some loved it! It was an original plot with new ideaa.
One person struggled to see the 1960’s ladies around the tv, others felt that the ladies liked the fact THEY were being spoken to.
One was gripped from the first page and didn’t want it to finish.
We considered whether Elizabeth Zott was autistic, she was certainly very single-minded, Her daughter was definitely more 'rounded' than her mother.
One person galloped through, enjoying the humour and the tragedy. Another felt like it was a translated version of women's life in 2023 back to the 60s and couldn’t cope with the transposition.
Others felt it was representative but questioned whether the level of awareness wasn’t that sharp.
There always have been mavericks!
Someone’s 91 year old mother loved it and thought it was representative of the time.
It was so quirky and obviously not real but that made it more truthful somehow.
We loved the dog and the cooking.
We felt Elizabeth's pain when tragedy struck.
One of the group read the book over a long time, reading just a few minutes at a time. She felt this contributed to why the book didn’t grab her and she wondered where the book was going at times although it all tied together as she got to the end but she did find she got bored. Moving from one crisis to the next without a break had the effect of making this reader disengage. (Note this was not the experience of the rest of the group.) That being said she would still recommend the book because it is so original, you’ve just got to “tolerate the excessive quirkiness”.
Bits made people laugh out loud and the dog was amazing! We understand the dog is based on the authors dog named Friday. It was a very intuitive dog!
The author is a rower. In rowing everyone has to be in balance. The book seems to be saying this is what is wrong in society: men and religion have too much control, it is out of balance!
One incident involving rape, does “pull you up from the bubble of enjoyment”! It is shocking but totally believable.
The best bit was when the TV producer (the man in 'power') was coming towards Elizabeth with a knife!
We could imagine this book as a film.
How would we describe it?
• Refreshing;
• Thought provoking;
• Bit patronising;
• Page turner;
Most of us were sad (or even devastated) to have finished it.
We discussed whether this might be a 'woman’s book' but at least one husband is enjoying it.
No comments:
Post a Comment