This was an assignment for one of my regular book groups.
The author, Mary Laura Philpott, reads her own book, a practice I like, and does a good job.
I was not a fan of this author or book, which was a surprise, it is a memoir, I like memoirs.
Half of my group did not finish the book. I read it (Hoopla) in order to discuss it for my book group, but was not a fan. It was too ramble-y for all of us. It needed tighter editing.
There is an underlying theme of epilepsy in Bomb Shelter. But it is not the focus. There is the underlying theme of the author’s parents health situation, it also was not the focus. We all agreed we would have liked it more if the family situations had been the cohesive focus and she had left out most of the side stories.
It had a lot of random-ness. I never fully connected with the author, I think because I do not know her.
I think if this author had a long list of previously published novels, and then wrote a memoir letting us in to her life and writing, I might have liked the random stories.
Ann Patchett and Anna Quindlen and Dani Shapiro all came to mind. They have a nice list of well written fiction and then have treated us to nonfiction about their lives and writing too. If Elizabeth Strout wrote a memoir, I would be all over it.
Two people in my group could not stand the author’s anxiety. One said the anxiety gave her insight to how anxious people think. The anxiety did not bother me, I identified with it.
Everyone in the group, but me, had read the author’s first book I Miss You When I Blink (bottom of this post), also a memoir, and liked it. This title is a reference to epilepsy, but they all said the first book is not about epilepsy.
Publication Order of Mary Laura Philpott Humor Books
