Our first brunch/book club adventure. Clever & witty name tk.

Two of my favorite past times/hobbies/activities/passions are books and brunch.  Put them together and ta-da – what a fabulous day!  I met the lovely ladies Nicole (@nicolebo) of Linus’s Blanket and Erica (@EricaBrooke) of Harper Perennial fame  at V Bar in the East Village for mimosas, breakfast, and to talk about our first book:

STRANGERS AT THE FEAST by Jennifer Vanderbes

Yes, we all agreed the jacket was unattractive at best.  And if you can explain the tear, I’d love to hear it.

Since I just had 2.5 magnolia cupcakes, I’m on a sugar-high and can hopefully publish this post (that’s been sitting in draft since Monday) before the crash comes!  This is my first real book club gathering in two years, and I must say it was charming that all three of us were racing to finish the novel right before meeting.  I was ready to pack my Kindle away and walk to brunch and planned to finish the remaining 12% while sitting on a sunny bench and waiting for the ladies to arrive, when the action that had been foreshadowed the entire other 300 or so pages FINALLY happened. Needless to say I couldn’t put it down then, sped to the end before speed walking to the V.

STRANGERS AT THE FEAST was the first book I’ve read by Vanderbes (first I’d ever heard of her).  I think all of us felt the same way – we expected to like it more than we did.

There is typically something universally relateable and compulsively readable about a family in crisis.  Nicole pointed out that the pacing felt off – the book was quite slow, foreshadowing this massive event that was to take place and when it (don’t want to give anything away!) FINALLY happened, it wrapped up so quickly and none of us were satisfied with the conclusion.

Also, as Erica so eloquently notes in her GoodReads review: there is a bit about an adult brother and sister who “fiercely hug” every night before bed that freaked us all out. Unintentional incest overtones alert!

 

Book Club at our initial Dos Cominos inception brunch

Our April pick (when hopefully we’ll have the whole “club” present, including Colleen @booksnyc, Jenny @jennysbooks, Miriam @MiriamParker, and Neha) is YOU KNOW WHEN THE MEN ARE GONE by Siobhan Fallon.

 

Addition to post: on the topic of blurbs – even though Justin Cronin’s THE PASSAGE was hugely, wildly popular, I never would have thought a quote from him of vampire fame would be relevant to this book, though it appears on the cover.