How to Read a Book by Monica Wood (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @marinerbooks for the review copy of How to Read a Book by Monica Wood.  This book was published on May 7^th.

Did you have a special person in your life who helped inspire your love of reading?  My Great-Grandma Kile gave me Litte House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder for my 8^th birthday, and it started my passion for reading.  I sat immediately down and read it in one afternoon.  I had many beloved librarians who helped me along the way such as Mrs. Hamp in elementary school and Mrs. Mack in middle school.  Many teachers inspired my love of reading as well including my high school English teacher and friend, Mrs. Smith. 

How to Read a Book by Monica Wood is a beautifully written book that I literally could not put down.  Harriet Larson is a retired English teacher who has started a book club at a local prison for women.  She and the women all find themselves inspired by their reading selections and each other.  One young woman, Violet, gets released from prison.  She later meets Harriet in a bookstore, and she also meets Frank, a retired machinist, whose wife that she was in prison for killing during a drunk driving accident.  After this meeting, their three lives intersect in a fascinating way.  Will they all be able to find forgiveness in their hearts to move forward with life?

My thoughts on this book:

·       Wow!  This book was a tour de force.  It was a short book, but it packed in quite a story.

·       The story was told in alternating chapters from either Violet, Harriet, or Frank’s viewpoints.

·       The characters were all wonderfully developed, engaging, and complicated.  For instance, Frank is hiding the fact that he felt relief when his wife died in the car accident.  She was on her way to a divorce lawyer to start the divorce proceedings as she was having an affair.  He feels very guilty for feeling this way.

·       I always love the themes of forgiveness and second chances.  Harriet sees the women in the prison for who they are, individual women who have made a mistake, but that deserve a second chance in life.  She listens to them and respects them as no one else seems to do in prison. 

·       I also enjoyed the look at letting go of your guilt.  Frank feels guilty for his feelings about his wife’s death and Violet feels guilty for both killing Frank’s wife and for her mother’s death from cancer while she was in prison.  They both go through the journey of moving on from their guilt and helping each other to do it.

·       I always love books about books.  I love Maya Angelou and loved that the prison book club enjoyed her poetry.  They also really enjoyed The Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters.  I remember learning about this book and reading a short snippet in American Literature, but I have never read the entire book.  This inspired me to move it further up my list!

·       I also enjoy second chance romance, which this book also had.

·       Violet gets a job working with Grey African Parrots and I loved it and learning more about the parrots.

·       This book really showed how having compassion for your fellow human beings helps not only them, but yourself as well.

·       The humor in this book gave me many a good chuckle.

·       This is a feel-good story, and I loved the ending.

Favorite Quotes:

“The line between this and that, you and her, us and them, the line is thin.”

“I’m just a person who hopes to be a good person.”

“I can accept your apology, which isn’t necessary.  But I honestly don’t know how to accept your forgiveness.”

Overall, How to Read a Book by Monica Wood is a beautifully written book about forgiveness, second chances, empathy, and the complicated feelings of being human.  I couldn’t put this book down and I highly recommend it.  It’s one of my favorite books of this year so far