The Fugitive Wife, The Calling & The Fig Eater

The last book I read, The Fig Eater by Jody Shields, was the one I liked least of the three most recent books I've read. It's our book club book for this month and we meet on Monday. I finished it much sooner than I usually do b/c another woman in my book club asked to borrow it. There were a lot of things I didn't like about it. I didn't really like a lot of the characters, I didn't like all the flashbacks and the sayings that were spread throughout the book. It just seemed like a lot of different things were thrown together, and then not really followed up on later in the book. I'll be interested to see what other people thought about it on Monday.

I did like both The Fugitive Wife and The Calling. In The Fugitive Wife, by Peter Brown, Essie has run away from her husband and ended up in Alaska. You don't find out until quite a ways into the book why she ran away, and it wasn't as a result of a single, dramatic event. It seems like it built up for her and then after her son died, she had just had enough and couldn't go back. Even though Leonard sounds like an awful husband, I couldn't completely dislike him. When he shows up in Alaska and she chooses to stay with him instead of Nate, I couldn't really blame her for her decision. I wanted to believe that he had changed, and at least wanted to have a good life with Essie. Then again, I wasn't too upset when she ended up going to Nate after all. I skimmed some parts of the book, mainly dealing with the birds, but did enjoy learning about life on the farm and in Nome.

The Calling: A Year in the Life of an Order of Nuns by Catherine Whitney was very interesting. I didn't go to Catholic school so I haven't had much experience with nuns. I'm fascinated by them and was interested in learning more about how exactly they live. One thing that surprised me was learning that, at least in the order that she was describing, they did not receive support from the diocese and had to support themselves. One question that she asked that wasn't answered was whether or not this type of life is dying out as fewer and fewer people join these orders. It seems like that will eventually be the case.

I'm not reading anything right now, but have a few books waiting for me at the Library. Hopefully one of them will appeal to me. I have to pick out three books to present at book club on Monday night and really don't have anything in mind yet.