Dinner Date and Book Club #2

Hey all!  It's been an interesting week over here, lots of stuff going on.  Greg started his June schedule this week.  He was only home two nights this week and didn't get home til after I went to bed Wednesday night, so we didn't really have any time together that day.  I realized that Thursday night was really the only night I could see him, but alas, I had my book club that night!  Quickly I plotted out a way to both see him and go to the book club.  There's a Mellow Mushroom right near FABO where we meet for book club, and I knew I could lure Greg over there to meet me by mentioning pizza.  Works every time!

He met me at Mellow Mushroom for dinner after I got out of work, so that we could at least enjoy dinner together before I headed to book club.

Mushroom-y

We ordered a large Greek salad to split.

Um, yeah, we had already kind of attacked it at this point.

We got a medium mushroom and roasted red pepper pizza.

Totally delicious.

After dinner we walked around the area, since Greg hasn't really been over there much before.  We ducked into the Reid's Fine Food store, and actually ran into Katie!

Greg headed home and I headed to book club with Katie. 

So you probably remember that we read A Friend of the Family, by Lauren Grodstein.

The one thing the book really got me thinking about the most was this: wanting The American Dream. Even though the story in the book is dark and kind of disturbing at times, the narrator keeps coming back to the topic of just wanting a this classic American life- to grow up, have a successful career, get married, have children, then successful children that basically repeat the process. I think part of what derails the protagonist in this story is that he freaks out when he sees deviation from the life he'd always envisioned and worked for.

In a weird way, I felt like I could relate to this. I know in this day and age things have changed a lot in that not everyone conforms to the traditional "perfect life", but I am not ashamed to admit that I actually do want this. Some people don't care about getting married. Some people don't want children. Some people want to backpack around the globe for a lifetime. I am not one of those people. Maybe it's because I was brought up in a happy nuclear family and that I just loved how it felt growing up this way and want to continue the chain of it. I guess I've always felt like I'd be missing out on something pretty important in life if I didn't get married and have children.

Like the author in the book, I feel like I've had to work really hard to get all these things in my life and it's almost like juggling and keeping all the balls in the air. It's exhausting keeping a career, a marriage, the house, and trying to conceive a child so that I can obtain the perfect life I've always envisioned.  So I kind of get why he was so determined to have and maintain this life.

Anyway, just my take on it.  The book club was fun though.  We brought questions to discuss, and this one was a great book to debate because some of the members hated the book and some liked it.

We chose our next book at the end of the meeting, which is Little Bee.

All I've heard about this book is this:

"WE DON'T WANT TO TELL YOU TOO MUCH ABOUT THIS BOOK.It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it.Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this:It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific.The story starts there, but the book doesn't.And it's what happens afterward that is most important.Once you have read it, you'll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds."

And that my friends who have read said it was great!  Just bought a copy today and hope to get in some reading this afternoon!  Have you guys read this book?