Last night was the very first book club meeting for the Women of Washington Oaks (WoWO). Since I organized this book club by winning copies from the author of Happy Hour, Michele Scott, it made sense it would be at my house to start. There were 6 of us last night and we had a ball.Obviously the book chosen was Happy Hour by Michele Scott. In this story about friendship and support, are 4 friends who are going through some of the toughest times in their lives. Kat, a bit of a control freak - but who can blame her, is the divorced mother of 2 boys. Jamie is a wife and mother when tragedy hits and she's left to take care of her mother-in-law and raise a child on her own. Alyssa has a past that nobody knows about, until it comes back to find her in several ways. Danielle, mother of two girls, is trying to get her vineyard up and running when life takes an unexpected turn. Through their trials, at least these women have each other and their "Happy Hour" gatherings to get them through.
Here is a summary of what we thought of the book as a group:
We all found these women very relateable and would want to have these women as our friends. Over all , the women in the book club enjoyed the book and reading about the lives of these women. Favorite guys voted by the group were Tyler and Christian and most relateable woman was Kat.
The writing style, where each chapter was a different women's perspective, was split. Some of us liked that aspect of it, while others felt it was disjointed because once you got into a particular aspect of the story it jumped to someone else.
The average rating from the 6 of us was a 3.8. We thought that the book started off a bit on the slow side but by page 178 (apparently a favorite page for several of the girls) it picked up and enticed us to read on. Everyone was glad they stuck with it as it definitely paid off in the end.
We were split on whether or not we would want to see a sequel to Happy Hour, but mostly because we didn't want to see these women go through any more turmoil than they had already been through. The one thing we would like to see if a sequel were written is Alyssa and Darren happily married and Ian healed and healthy. Something tells me that we are invested enough in these characters that we would read a sequel if Michele Scott chooses to write it.
There was plenty of food to eat, an abundance of book chatter and the wine was flowing generously. All in all, I would say it was a very successful first meeting!
Next up for the WoWO book club will be Dear John by Nicholas Sparks. We will meet on February 21st and see the movie and discuss the two over dinner.
This book fits the following challenges and categories for my personal challenges:
- The Romance Reading Challenge
- RYOB Challenge
- New Authors Challenge
- PBT Jan Tag: Other
- Monthly Mixer Mele Challenge: M in noveMber (Michelle)
