2020.07.27 Meeting Notes

Sheesh, it’s taken me so long to send this I might as well just tell it to you at the next club meeting since it’s next week. I think probably no one was really waiting for this one because I don’t think a lot of people really liked the book. I think the description of Scandi-lite was pretty spot on. Although I enjoyed it and I know some other people did too, I don’t think it will be up there in our Hall of Fame. ﻿
The book got one 9, three 8s, one 7, one 6, two 5s, one 4, three 3s, three 2s. 
For the most part the people who gave it a low score thought it had a lot of useless dialogue, that it was quite forgettable, and some didn’t hate it but wanted stories to come together more at the end. This last comment was made multiple times. I think even those of us who liked it wished it was a little more connected at the end, with the characters at least. Some people went in with a certain expectation based on the book jacket description, and I think that was where it fell short - it did not meet expectations. And Jeff, strangely enough, actually likes his books to have a plot. Who knew?
Tammy returned the audiobook to get a credit, Allie kept falling asleep, And Jay checked his thesaurus and came up with some adjectives: insipid, vapid, banal, shallow, dull. 
It was likened to the band ABBA - not a lot of substance but kind of fun to listen to. Which leads me to those of us who liked it. We actually kind of liked the useless dialogue because we chose to call it “funny banter.” We just enjoyed being along for the ride and were OK that it really didn’t go anywhere. The characters were definitely humorous and the author has quite an imagination. 
We thought the crimes were kind of funny, especially when the midget stabbed the guy in the back of the knee. I think quirky would be a good word to use. It was definitely not Scandinavian noir, but Scandinavian blanc. 
We spent the end of the meeting talking a lot about recommended movies, books, and TV series. I’m gonna name a few and Jeff has put a few up on our wiki site so you can check there. If you don’t have the wiki site, never fear, once Jeff gets these notes posted there he will reply all with the site link. 
The funny movie that I saw that was in Italian, where the family left the mom at a rest stop and she stayed, is called Bread and Tulips. 
Our book for September is John Grisham’s Camino Winds, and it is the second in a series so if you get a chance you might want to read Camino Island first.
Someone recommended The Little French Bistro book and I wrote down the name Shirley Valentine. Not sure why. (It's a movie. -ed.)
Some shows people recommended were Blood & Treasure (Amazon Prime), the series Rebus, The Vicar of Dibley, Father Brown (new and old), Ozark, Dexter, the movie Snow Piercer, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Marcella (Netflix), and Jeff had a sci-fi one that was really Dark but I don’t remember the name.
(Kerry also mentioned The Lady Vanishes TV movie from 2013. -ed.)
This month we will meet on August 24 via Zoom to discuss The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell. Zoom info below. This is a recurring meeting, so the Zoom info will be the same each month.
See you next Monday,
Kerry