Title: The Dirty Book Club
Author: Lisi Harrison
Date finished: 10/26/17
Genre: Fiction, women’s fiction
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication Date: October 10, 2017
Pages in book: 321
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.
Blurb from the cover:
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Clique series comes a novel about the importance of friendship, and, of course, the pleasure of a dirty book.
M.J. Stark’s life is picture-perfect—she has her dream job as a magazine editor, a sexy doctor boyfriend, and a glamorous life in New York City. But behind her success, there is a debilitating sense of loneliness. So when her boss betrays her and her boyfriend offers her a completely new life in California, she trades her cashmere for caftans and gives it a try. Once there, M.J. is left to fend for herself in a small beach town, with only the company of her elderly neighbor, Gloria, and an ocean that won’t shut up.
One afternoon, M.J. discovers that Gloria has suddenly moved to Paris with her friends to honor a fifty-year-old pact. And in lieu of a goodbye, she’s left a mysterious invitation to a secret club—one that only reads erotic books. Curious, M.J. accepts and meets the three other hand-selected club members. As they bond over naughty bestsellers and the shocking letters they inherited from the original club members, the four strangers start to divulge the intimate details of their own lives… and as they open up, they learn that friendship might just be the key to rewriting their own stories: all they needed was to find each other first.
My rating: 3.5 stars out of a scale of 5
My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of M.J. Stark, a woman still recovering from the tragic death of her family three years earlier. M.J. works for The City as an editor and is looking forward to an upcoming promotion. When she finds out that she will have to share her position with another employee though, she runs off to be with her boyfriend while she figures out what to do. Her boyfriend is a doctor opening a practice in California and is happy to have her there, but their up til now long-distance relationship is tested when they start living together. M.J. befriends their neighbor, an older woman named Gloria, who soon after meeting M.J. moves away and leaves a legacy behind. The Dirty Book Club, where they gather to read scandalous books. M.J. doesn’t have girlfriends and welcomes this chance to be a part of a group. But with such different women, can they really come together as friends and survive the drama that is life?
Overall I did like this book a lot, it was really interesting and I really connected with M.J.’s character with all her odd quirks. I loved the author’s dive into women’s relationships and how they’re formed and how they struggle. All the characters in this story were flawed but the reader still ends up liking them (for the most part). I loved how brave M.J. was and how much she was willing to risk for her friendships and her relationship. The story line was not too graphic despite the title and it was actually heart-warming and very sweet, but there were some holes and things that didn’t quite add up. By the time we get to the end especially there were a couple scenes that I found somewhat anti-climactic, like when Jules “finds out” Britt’s secret. Other than these few things though it was a good book and I enjoyed it a lot.
The bottom line: I liked this book a lot, although there were some holes to it. I thought it was an interesting book about female friendships and I found parts of it laugh out loud funny. I would recommend giving this one a try!
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