Book Review: Friday Mornings at Nine by Marilyn Brant

Friday Mornings at Nine by Marilyn Brant

I needed a light read for the summer so I suggested this book as a possible title for book group. It had been sitting on my bookshelf unread for so long that it was about time. I received this book a couple years ago through the Early Readers program at Library Thing. Was really excited to get it back then, having just read Brant's debut novel, According to Jane and really enjoying it. I blame the new babe for making me so late in reading and reviewing it. :)

Anyway, I was glad my book group decided to go with this book despite their inability to find it at the library. Anyone know how to go about requesting copies not in a library's collection?

This may be the fastest I have finished a book for book group so far. I was really intrigued by these three ladies contemplating cheating on their husbands. Each one had a different reason, different problems at home that contributed to their thoughts of infidelity. I found it interesting how the choices they made early on in their relationships affected their behaviors twenty years later. I couldn't help trying to figure out who of the three or if any would go through with it while reading.

The ladies and their familial dilemmas were very interesting and entertaining but their friendship left something to be desired. Their relationships with each other lacked intimacy, candor and believable friendship. They felt more like acquaintances, which made it hard for me to understand why the three of them, with very little in common besides troubled marriages, would get together every week for coffee.  It seemed more a chore and something they dreaded rather than something they looked forward to. 

Thankfully, this issue seemed to resolve itself before the end of the book. As their problems at home were rectified, so to was their friendship. They seemed to become closer once they were able to open up and share and get each others support.

Good book. Would recommend to any other book group looking for a light read but with some good topics to discuss with friends and good wine.

Source: Library Thing Early Reviewers


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Mailbox Monday

And the books keep coming. Yay.
I won a book from Library Thing's Early Reviewers November batch.

Marilyn Brant's Friday Mornings at Nine.

Excited to read this one. I really enjoyed her first novel According to Jane.


The Mailbox Monday Blog Tour can be found at Let Them Read Books this month.

My copy of Dark Moon of Avalon by Anna Elliot, which I shared in last week's Mailbox Monday, is up for giveaway. Go here and sign up to win my copy.


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Book Review- According to Jane by Marilyn Brant

According to Jane by Marilyn Brant
An interesting concept: As a teen, Ellie Barnett, begins to hear Jane Austen in her head giving her advice on love and life. The book follows Ellie's life, sexual experiences and loves from her teens into her thirties while Jane points out each boy/man's faults. They attempt to pigeon hole each guy into a certain category... Bingley- like, Darcy-ish, or a Wickham. During this 20 year span, Ellie comes to realize that her teen crush, the one that broke her heart, was more Darcy than Wickham. 
I enjoyed it for the most part. I think I would have actually enjoyed the story more without the weird in-her-head conversations with Jane Austen. The sex scenes were a bit explicit, which may be a problem for some. They didn't really bother me, but be forewarned. They were definitely not expected in a book inspired by Jane Austen. 
3/5
Source: Amazon, free ebook 

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