Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by winchesterkim
The Rejected Writers' Book Club by Suzanne Kelman
Did not finish book.
While I enjoyed the premise of this book, I found it dragged a bit, and I wasn't able to finish it.
The premise is to get back a manuscript, that has been accepted - Which we are led to believe is the main reason the author wants it back, because it will ruin their perfect record of rejection letters. We find out along the way this is not the real reason for wanting to get the book back; the author doesn't want to embarrass her mom. As this appears to be an urgent matter, emergency meetings are called and the ladies of the club come up with an elaborate scheme to get the book back.
This is where they lose me. If it so urgent why not pick up the phone and call them? Why decided to road trip it from the Seattle area down to San Fran, and sight see along the way? Once they get on the road there is no sense of urgency from either the members of the book club nor from the driver, Janet Johnson, the newest member of the club Janet has never had a book rejected - she works in the local library, and so the other ladies feel she knows something about the publishing business. To me that is like saying because you work at a department store you know something about fashion design.
Janet is heading down to San Fran to take care of her pregnant daughter who is having complications and the son-in-law has to go on a business trip. She and the daughter have a difficult relationship, but she wants to help and maybe this is a way they can start to heal. Because she has a finite time she can be gone I would think there would be a sense of urgency to get there. But when issues start to arise along the way I didn't feel her underlying desire to get there.
Everyone seemed happy to make lemonade (and cake, dinner and cinnamon buns) out of the lemons thrown in their way. And along the way they meet some interesting characters, but this was not enough to hold my attention. There seemed to be too many goals and plot points in this book, and therefore for me too scattered.
The premise is to get back a manuscript, that has been accepted - Which we are led to believe is the main reason the author wants it back, because it will ruin their perfect record of rejection letters. We find out along the way this is not the real reason for wanting to get the book back; the author doesn't want to embarrass her mom. As this appears to be an urgent matter, emergency meetings are called and the ladies of the club come up with an elaborate scheme to get the book back.
This is where they lose me. If it so urgent why not pick up the phone and call them? Why decided to road trip it from the Seattle area down to San Fran, and sight see along the way? Once they get on the road there is no sense of urgency from either the members of the book club nor from the driver, Janet Johnson, the newest member of the club Janet has never had a book rejected - she works in the local library, and so the other ladies feel she knows something about the publishing business. To me that is like saying because you work at a department store you know something about fashion design.
Janet is heading down to San Fran to take care of her pregnant daughter who is having complications and the son-in-law has to go on a business trip. She and the daughter have a difficult relationship, but she wants to help and maybe this is a way they can start to heal. Because she has a finite time she can be gone I would think there would be a sense of urgency to get there. But when issues start to arise along the way I didn't feel her underlying desire to get there.
Everyone seemed happy to make lemonade (and cake, dinner and cinnamon buns) out of the lemons thrown in their way. And along the way they meet some interesting characters, but this was not enough to hold my attention. There seemed to be too many goals and plot points in this book, and therefore for me too scattered.