2018.01.22 Meeting Notes

We met in January to discuss Every Last Lie by Mary Kubica. It was the author’s fourth book and it has gotten very mixed reviews. I’ll jump right in. The book’s description billed it as a mystery but many of us disagreed with that. We were led to believe that Clara’s husband was killed and followed along while she tried to figure out who was responsible. It turned out that he hadn’t been murdered, he had just driven recklessly. It was a story of a deeply depressed woman who has just lost her husband and can’t deal with her grief.
To be fair, a few people liked the book and gave it high scores. They felt sorry for Clara and read along and followed her grief and denial. There were a few mysterious aspects of the book and they enjoyed them. My favorite, though, was Pat’s comment that “it was better than Jack Reacher.” [No it wasn't! ed.]
 Many of us didn't like the book and felt that we were tricked into reading it, so we came up with a few one word descriptions for the book. This is a photo of our white board (which is actually blue).
We thought the book was awful, a struggle, terrible, the characters were weak, some didn’t like the back and forth between Clara and Nick. Denise thought it was a “futile exercise in reading.” Jeff felt sorry for Clara but thought Nick was a douchebag. I was wishing Lo from Cabin 10 was back because she was less whiney. Tammie thought the author phoned it in and Kim was disturbed that Clara kept leaving her baby in the hot car in a heat wave.
One of the main criticisms was that it just fell off at the end. We followed along to see who murdered Nick and the found out there was no murder. Very disappointing for a murder mystery book club comprised of many people who believe that the higher the body count the better. As Dennis put it, “I like torture, I like murder.” We thought Detective Kaufman was the hero of the story and Clara’s mom was the only redeeming character.
Some people wanted to slap Clara and the author, but most wanted to slap Nick for causing the whole thing. I wanted to slap the blurb writer for making me think the book was a mystery.
The scores were some of the lowest I’ve seen (pay attention, some have decimals): we had one 0, one .1, three .5s, two 1s, two 2s, there 3s, one 3.5, two 5s, one 6, one 6.5 and one 7.
Perhaps if the ending was different, we would have scored the book higher. Here are a few suggestions from the club as to how it could have ended and been a better book:
* Nick didn’t die, but faked his death.
* Bookies killed Nick for his debts.
* Connor killed him for practice then killed Clara, and her little dog too.
* The Russian mob killed him, just because they’re the Russian mob and Kerry always hates when it’s the mob.
* Clara’s Dad killed Nick because he was never good enough for her.
* Supernatural tree nymphs were to blame.
* Nick didn’t die, he was zapped up to an alien spaceship.
Thank you to Jay for providing the snacks, even though you were too sick to come to the meeting.
Next month we will discuss I See You by Clare Mackintosh. Jose will lead and Denise & Dennis are bringing the snack. See you on February 26th in the kiddie room of the Lone Tree Library.
And one last thing, it’s Garfunkel not Garfunkle. Get it right people!!!
Kerry