January book: Good to a Fault, by Marina Endicott

chosen by Pen

Book Description

Clara Purdy is at a crossroads. At forty-three, she is divorced, living in her late parents' house, and near-ing her twentieth year as a claims adjuster at a local insurance firm. Driving to the bank during her lunch hour, she crashes into a sharp left turn, taking the Gage family in the other car with her. When bruises on the mother, Lorraine, prove to be late-stage cancer, Clara decides to do the right thing. She moves Lorraine's three children and their terrible grandmother into her own house—and then has to cope with the consequences of practical goodness: exhaustion, fury, hilarity, and unexpected love.

What, exactly, does it mean to be good? What do we owe each other in this life, and what do we deserve? Good to a Fault is an ultimately joyful book that digs deep, with leavening humor, into questions of morality, class, and social responsibility. Marina Endicott looks at life and death through the compassionate, humane lens of a born novelist: being good, being at fault, and finding some balance in between.

What we discussed about the book:

Overall, those who read the book liked the fact that the character development and ending were thorough. A lot of the books we have read tend to rush the ending and/or we don’t get to know the characters very well. The book handled both those things really well.

We then discussed:

• Whether we would take on a family like Clary did.
• How Clary's personality changed from quite dull to being full of life with the children around.
• The difficulty of being in Lorraine's position, but also the way she treated Clary when she got better and took the kids back.
• How much we hated Clayton!
• Clary's relationship with Paul though no one had really strong feelings about Paul as a character

And then we were sidetracked into:

• Children starting school and how they coped. Were they looking forward to it, did they enjoy it etc.
  
• Anxiety, how it can affect us and how you manage it.
  
• Did any of us develop anxiety after having children, or did having children exacerbate an existing condition?
  
• The surprising number of people that have anxiety, depression.
  

And in other news:

• We discussed Pip’s forthcoming snowboarding trip to Japan.
  
• We discussed what Sharon is going to do for her 40^th birthday – that is after she organizes Shaun’s 40^th which is in 3 weeks time!
  

Ratings

Ratings average: 8.00

Ratings range: 7.5 to 8.5