Talk About it Tuesday
I finished the book Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta on Sunday. On Saturday night, I lay in bed until about 11:30 reading. I turned off the light and went to sleep after I got mad at Tom. Yet again. This whole book is based on a female main character. She is portrayed as old. Her son just went off to college. She’s divorced. She doesn’t know what to do with her life. She herself feels old. That’s how he wrote her. So, naturally, I think she’s much older. How about in a conversation with another character she says she’s 46?! I’m only 44. So, F you, again Tom Perrotta. For making me feel old.
I went on to finish the book because it’s the ending that I really wanted to critique. His endings tend to be ultra ambiguous and leave a lot of questions unanswered. The ending of this book, thankfully, answered everything I wanted to know and it was actually pretty satisfying. However, on the last two pages, there was a hesitation. As in, Mrs. Fletcher hesitated when she really wasn’t supposed to. And I got nervous. Because I started to suspect it was going to end on a “Well did she?!” kind of cliffhanger. It did not.
I do have one beef with the book. The synopsis on the back alluded to a big event happening. One huge thing that happens that changes the lives of the characters. So, I’m thinking it’s going to be, well, a huge thing that is…well, life changing. I’m thinking some hugely dramatic event. Something truly scandalous with very serious repercussions. You know what that HUGE event was? A threesome. I won’t say with who, you know spoilers. But, it was a sexual encounter with two other people. Seriously?! That’s it?!
When I wrote the finished date on my little 2026 reading list bookmark, I only colored in 3 stars for this one. I’m usually very generous with my 5 stars. I love books. I usually like all the ones I read. This one was really just…meh. I’m officially done with Tom Perrotta. He redeemed himself with the ending of this one, but he lost me with the plot that didn’t live up to the hype on the back of the book. I will most likely not watch the ‘limited series’ when it comes out on HBO.
I finished this on Sunday and then decided to go about finding my next book the way I think I’m going to do it from now on. There are nine bookshelves in our house with books. Five of them have my books on them. I’ve decided that I’m going to pick a book from each bookshelf to read in the order the shelves are. Then I’ll just keep repeating the order. I picked a book off the first shelf. It’s actually the only book on that shelf I haven’t read. It’s a young adult book that I had in my classroom for a long time but never read. The author is one who had a book on the Battle of the Books list for many years. It was one of the few books I brought home from my classroom when I quit teaching. It’s called Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper. Because it’s a YA book, I started it on Sunday and finished it this afternoon. It was good. It got 5 stars on my bookmark.
On the next shelf I’m thinking of picking Dr. Fauci’s autobiography. It’s super thick though so I don’t know. It might take me a while.
I’ll come back with an update when I decide on my next one.
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