Our July meeting took place at Open House, Spare Room - a small venue that has opened up on Durham Road in Low Fell. It has a pleasant room where we were free to bring drinks and snacks to enjoy during the evening.
The book we discussed was The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan. The general feeling about the book was mediocre to completely negative, with the exception of Ruth. She quite liked it, finding it an easy read, particularly liking the characters of Sunshine and Laura, although she felt that Laura stayed far too long with her awful husband.
Anne Marie equated the book itself to "utter drivel", disliking the use of a special needs character as a device, and the portrayal of dementia. The writing style was criticised by many of the group, with its heavy-handed use of alliteration and malapropisms. There is an extra chapter in some editions of the novel, which Emma felt to be pointless.
Jeanette could not warm to or relate to any of the characters; Joanne thought there was too much going on; and Sue felt it was "turgid". Several of the group accepted that the basic idea was one with possibilities, but poorly executed and the resulting book was bitty. Jeanette summed it up by saying: "The nicest thing about the book was the design of the cover"!
We achieved a score of two out of five for the book (mostly from votes ranging from one to five, but with one score of five.)
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