We started out by going through the questions that my mom has sent to us from Oklahoma:
1. Who do you think wrote the more realistic and convincing coming of age story, Lamb or Fitch.
We will let Nadine send her "scathing commentary" on this book to each member individually since she already has them all typed up, but here iseveryone else's comments
Jeaneen - kept getting this book confused with White Oleander - in her opinion they were the same book.
Everyone else - these were two different books with two different stories and they were both believable.
2. Which characters did you find most believable/unbelievable?
We felt many of the characters in the book were believable, but we thought the guy she ended up wanting to have the baby by was not believable.
Jeaneen kept mixing it up with the characters from White Oleander.
3. Do you accept the ending as logical and consistent?
None of us remembered how it ended so we had no comment. Jeaneen mixed it up with the ending to White Oleander.
4.What did you like most about the book?
Diane thought it very interesting that a man could get inside a woman's
mind so well to write the book the way he did.
LaVaughn liked the way the girl gained strength in the end and was able to lose her weight and leave her husband.
Jeaneen and Debbie concluded that we are sick of reading about "white girl
problems." Jeaneen, however liked the book and Debbie did not.
5. When exactly did we think she came undone?
There was no consensus on this one. Overall, we felt that several of the small incidents all built up to make her come undone. Specifically, the teacher made her come undone. The lesbian that "raped" her contributed in big part to her comingundone, not to confuse the events with those in White Oleander the only reason she came undone is because she was a "white girl". An African American adolescent would have had whole different outcomes in both Lamb's and Fitch's book(s).
Okay, that concludes the summary. Hope to see you all on the 24th.
> >