HOW TO READ A BOOK is author Monica Wood's latest title. The story is set in Portland and follows Harriet, Violet and Frank's lives, which are all connected via a tragedy and books.
The book starts with Harriet visiting the women's prison as a volunteer to conduct a book club for a group of inmates. Violet is one of the inmates and part of the book club. A rule of book club via the prison management is for the inmates and the volunteers not to exchange any personal information. The rule is not followed and they end up knowing about each other much more than the management would've wanted. It is also the reason, Harriet is finally asked to stop volunteering.
Violet ends up getting out early due to good behaviour and coincidentally meets Harriet at the bookshop where Harriet always picks up books for the book club. Seeing how Harriet is very generous and sympathetic to the inmates, she grabs the chance to help Violet settle into life out of prison. It is the bookshop where Harriet and Violet chance upon Frank, who is the store handyman. And gradually their connection is revealed and the healing of their past baggage starts with them helping each other.
I liked -
The acceptance these characters had of each other despite their initial reason to come together and the hurt caused to the other. It is truly an emotional, warm second chance in action for them.
The books, of course, and the book club. A raw, funny representation of a book club where there are books, yes and they are read too along with sharing dreams and talents as a part of the 2 hours these women get together.
I enjoyed seeing the power in books, how they brought together these women, healed some, empowered some and gave simple pure joy too.
A bittersweet, realistic at times heartwrenching story of how books and friendship have the power to heal, renew, and restart lives when you know how to read them. Which is not too difficult really, simply read and if you find someone willing to discuss it, speak your mind and that's it. It's pure pleasure to read and discuss a piece of writing even if for a few minutes.
If you love reading you will enjoy this story. Also, if you want to start reading, this story will show you how to enjoy the process of finding what you like reading.
From the award-winning author of The One-in-a-Million Boy comes a deeply moving storyabout a young woman recently released from prison who finds an unlikely ally in the widower of the woman she killed.
Our Reasons meet us in the morning and whisper to us at night. Mine is an innocent, unsuspecting, eternally sixty-one-year-old woman named Lorraine Daigle…
Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher.
Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest.
Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn’t yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.
When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland—Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman—their lives begin to intersect in beautiful, transformative ways.
How to Read a Book is an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt and seizing second chances. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.
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