The Group

I wanted to like this novel - no, I wanted to love it, but in the end it was just okay. This is the story of a group of female friends; these women have knows each other for a couple of decades and are now about to enter their forties. Men, children, careers are all important to them and at times some - or all - of these dominate their thoughts and actions, along with a kind of melancholy. At the time of the 'me too' movement, these women consider the wider implications of this and how it affects their own lives .. and so much more besides. I struggled a bit with this one; it's not the kind of lives that I'm familiar with. I wasn't comfortable with the narrative which seemed to all come from one person but in retrospect. With no actual dialogue apart from he said or she said, I found myself wondering how Stella knew all this? That irritated me. There was a mention in the book of 'middle-class problems' and, for me, that is exactly what it's all about. Most of the women I know don't have the luxury of all the 'me time' that the characters had; I've only recently found time to meet up with girlfriends that I've kept in touch with but only seen intermittently over the years as we all were busy with our own lives. I suspect this is too highbrow for my liking; I'm pretty certain it will go on to be a bestseller and an award-winning novel, but it just doesn't do it for me. Sadly, it's a three star read.