I am still using books and reading as my quarantine escape! I am in a few virtual reading groups and I know several readers have said they’re having trouble focusing during this time. That was how I felt in the beginning, but have since been able to plow through some books.
The latest read from Blanche’s Book Club is “The Jetsetters” by Amanda Eyre Ward. Here is the scoop from Barnes & Noble:
When seventy-year-old Charlotte Perkins submits a sexy essay to the Become a Jetsetter contest, she dreams of reuniting her estranged children: Lee, an almost-famous actress; Cord, a handsome Manhattan venture capitalist who can’t seem to find a partner; and Regan, a harried mother who took it all wrong when Charlotte bought her a Weight Watchers gift certificate for her birthday. Charlotte yearns for the years when her children were young, when she was a single mother who meant everything to them.
When she wins the contest, the family packs their baggage—both literal and figurative—and spends ten days traveling from sun-drenched Athens through glorious Rome to tapas-laden Barcelona on an over-the-top cruise ship, the Splendido Marveloso. As lovers new and old join the adventure, long-buried secrets are revealed and old wounds are reopened, forcing the Perkins family to confront the forces that drove them apart and the defining choices of their lives.
Can four lost adults find the peace they’ve been seeking by reconciling their childhood aches and coming back together? In the vein of The Nest and The Vacationers, The Jetsetters is a delicious and intelligent novel about the courage it takes to reveal our true selves, the pleasures and perils of family, and how we navigate the seas of adulthood.
Before I bought this book, I heard mixed reviews on it. But just like anything in life, I had to see for myself.
I really liked this idea of the main character entering a contest to win the trip of a lifetime… but once they got on the trip, it was downhill from there.
I felt like this plot could have gone so many different ways, but the trip and the destinations on the vacation got lost in the significant drama among the family members. For me, it was a little bit too much.
I admit that I have trouble with books that have a lot of characters, so that’s not the book’s fault… but this just didn’t end up being the escape I had hoped for!
The next book Blanche’s Book Club will be reading is “Big Summer” by Jennifer Weiner.
Happy reading!
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The Bitter Lemon 
Sounds like an interesting read and something I would consider. However I agree that it is much harder to read when there are so many characters in it, as it is so easy to lose track of who is who!
Exactly! I’m always jealous of readers who are good at remembering lots of characters and their stories but I’ve just sort accepted that anything with more than 3 characters is going to be a challenge.