Announcing our March book! Our next pick is Cruel Beautiful World by Caroline Leavitt . As with all of our choices, this was one of my ABSOLUTE favorites of last year.
It’s 1969, and sixteen-year-old Lucy is about to run away to live off the grid in rural Pennsylvania, a rash act that will have vicious repercussions for both her and her older sister, Charlotte. As Lucy’s default caretaker for most of their lives, Charlotte’s youth has been marked by the burden of responsibility, but never more so than when Lucy’s dream of a rural paradise turns into a nightmare.
Cruel Beautiful World examines the intricate, infinitesimal distance between seduction and love, loyalty and duty, and explores what happens when you’re responsible for things you cannot fix.
Caroline will be joining me live at my home – hooray – on March 15th at 8pm, where we will be chatting about the book, the writing life, and answering your questions.
She says about the book: When I was 17, a friend of mine was murdered by her much older, more controlling boyfriend–someone she had been with for five years. I never forgot it, but until I was in a controlling relationship of my own years later (Google my story “The Grief Diet,”) I couldn’t understand how someone could stay. I set the novel in 1969 and 1970, the time when the peace and love movement began to turn ugly, when Woodstock turned into Altamont and the Manson murders. The novel is so much about how we yearn to fix things and fix people, but sometimes we cannot, no matter how hard we try. Sometimes all you can do is step back and let life wash over you.
Two more days to go until Tom Perrotta, author of Mrs Fletcher, joins the Jane Green Book Club for its inaugural book!
Don’t forget, Tom Perrotta will be live on this facebook page: www.facebook.com/janegreenbookclub on Thursday November 16th at 8pm, EST, and you will be able to ask him questions then.
If you’re joining our book club and live chat by yourself, welcome, and all you have to do is log in to www.facebook.com/janegreenbookclub at 8pm EST on November 16th.
If you’re gathering friends to form a book club, or bringing an existing book club, we’ve put together a few guidelines on how to run your book club. Feel free to follow them, or abandon them completely! The important thing is you gather together good people, and have fun.
• We suggest you ask people to arrive at your home for your book club for 6.30 or 7pm, and bring their questions with them! Ensure you, as host, check your wifi connection beforehand. You will need a computer, laptop or ipad to join
the live chat with the author.
• 7pm – 8pm – Meet and greet in your home, and share your thoughts about the book with the group, and prepare questions.
• 8pm Log in to Facebook, and go to this page here:
https://www.facebook.com/janegreenbookclub/
• 8pm-9pm – Listen to Tom Perrotta talk about the book, and type in your questions. He may not be able to get to all of them, but will do his best.
• 9pm-10pm Continue talking about the book, with us online or amongst yourselves.
We hope you have a wonderful night, and can’t wait to hear about it. If you’re gathering friends, post photographs of your bookclub on instagram, twitter and facebook with the hashtags #janegreenbookclub #tomperrotta
Happy reading!