A review by mackplank30
Supper Club by Lara Williams

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This book was an enjoyable quick read. The premise of the story was intriguing, though didn’t feel like a fully fledged idea within the context of the story. The book focused a lot less on the “supper club” than I was expecting and was much more about the narrator’s, Roberta, internal struggle with her experiences of trauma and her perception of self. This was still compelling to read and explored depression really well. But I was expecting more exploration of the relationships between the women in the “supper club”, their personal reasons for taking part in it, and their relationships to the world. But it was primarily just about Roberta, we rarely get into details about the other women. The actions they partake in at the club meetings never really escalate and we don’t actually see that many meetings in the book. It’s kind of unclear why Roberta’s boyfriend dislikes her partaking in the “supper club”, we really don’t get much insight into why he feels that way. We don’t even get much insight into the other character that founds the club, Stevie. Stevie is more of a device for Roberta to act out of the bounds she has set for herself. 

Overall a book with compelling themes, but the “supper club” aspect of the story was really kind of secondary to Roberta’s personal story. Which left the overall book feeling incomplete.
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