Story for the Week
The adage “good fences make good neighbors” implies that the reason you have good neighbors is because you have a fence. Each of you maintain your own space, there’s a sense of privacy, the lines are clearly marked.
When we bought our home 17 years ago, the property had a chain link fence almost completely around the back yard. Our neighbors on one side were a couple about the same age as Dennis and me, with their two adult kids who lived at home. It was easy to become friends with them. We talked all the time when we were outside, and there were plenty of days we stood at the fence just chatting away. I remember that my parents used to do the same with our neighbors when I was a kid.
Corinne liked to climb on the decorative rock they had in the front of the house, and we have taken plenty of pictures of her there. Theirs was always the first house she went to for trick-or-treating, and they made sure to give her a couple handfuls of peanut-free treats.
Sherri and I both became widows about four years ago. When Dennis was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she checked in on me a lot, asked how he was feeling, encouraged him to stay positive. While Dennis was getting ready to go into a clinical trial, she unexpectedly lost her husband. I can still see Dennis’s shocked face when I told him. A few months later when we lost him, Sherri, her daughter Ashlei, and I spent a lot more time talking over that fence checking in on each other.
After Dennis passed away, I decided it would be good for Corinne (and me) to get a puppy. I grew up with dogs, and our dogs always had the run of the back yard. We needed to block the section across the driveway, so I hired someone to install a new fence around the whole yard. Sherri and I used the same landscaping company, so I decided to put a gate between our two yards. It made it easier for the landscapers to come through the back and do both yards. It also made it easier for Sherri, Ashlei, and me to grab a bottle of wine and visit in one yard or the other. 🍷🍷🍷
Our puppy Oreo loves Sherri and Ashlei, and the feeling is definitely mutual. We used to open the gate, and he would run laps around her yard, sniffing around the pool, trying to chase the bunnies under her deck. We called her yard “summer camp.” A couple of times when he got out of the yard, he immediately ran to Sherri’s back door. (At least he was easy to catch.) When my brother-in-law bought himself a puppy, Oreo showed her the ropes at summer camp. And on occasion, we would let the dogs out, and Sherri would be outside and let them come over to play.
When Sherri and Ashlei moved 🥺, I decided to put a lock on the gate. I didn’t want the new landscapers to accidentally leave it open. The new neighbors are nice enough. They have a lot of young grandkids who come over, so I’m regularly fetching balls out of the yard. I’d love to be able to unlock the gate so they could get them on their own, but again, they’re young. I don’t want to take a chance at them leaving the gate unlatched.
Over Labor Day weekend, I was fetching balls more then usual. 😉 When the dogs saw me go toward the back of the yard, they ran to the gate, scratching on it to get through. One of the little boys asked me if they used to play over there, and I told him yes, that we called it summer camp. It made me miss summer camp and my amazing friends and neighbors. 💜
The book below has a storyline that looks back, oddly enough, 17 years. Two of the main characters in the book use a gate between their yards to visit one another, share a drink and conversation…and sometimes a little bit more.
Book Review
⭐⭐
2 Stars for The Banned Books Club by Brenda Novak
369 pages
Publisher: Harlequin Trade Publishing | MIRA
Publication Date: September 17, 2024
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing | MIRA.
Publisher’s Description
Despite their strained relationship, when Gia Rossi’s sister, Margot, begs her to come home to Wakefield, Iowa, to help with their ailing mother, Gia knows she has no choice. After her rebellious and at-times-tumultuous teen years, Gia left town with little reason to look back. But she knows Margot’s borne the brunt of their mother’s care and now it’s Gia’s turn to help, even if it means opening old wounds.
As expected, Gia’s homecoming is far from welcome. There’s the Banned Books Club she started after the PTA overzealously slashed the high school reading list, which is right where she left it. But there is also Mr. Hart, her former favorite teacher. The one who was fired after Gia publicly and painfully accused him of sexual misconduct. The one who prompted Gia to leave behind a very conflicted town the minute she turned 18. The one person she hoped never to see again.
When Margot leaves town without explanation, Gia sees the cracks in her sister’s “perfect” life for the first time and plans to offer support. But as the town, including members of the book club, takes sides between Gia and Mr. Hart, everything gets harder. Fortunately, she learns that there are people she can depend on. And by standing up for the truth, she finds love and a future in the town she thought had rejected her.
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Main Characters:
- Gia – 35 years old, started a Banned Books Club during high school, accused her high school English teacher of sexual misconduct, left home at 18, owns a helicopter sightseeing business in Idaho
- Margot – Gia’s younger sister, married to Sheldon, stay-at-home mom to two sons who are 8 and 6, asked Gia to come home to help with their mother who is dying from cancer
- Cormac – local veterinarian, went to high school with Gia and Margot, his father is the teacher Gia accused, he has always stood by his father and thinks Gia lied about his father
- Luisa and Edith – Cormac’s younger sisters, Luisa works with Cormac at the veterinary clinic, they also think Gia lied about their father
- Sheldon – Margot’s husband, owns a local construction business that he inherited from his parents, verbally and emotionally abusive, seems to be having an affair with his high school girlfriend
Trigger warning: emotional/verbal abuse, molestation
I really wanted to like this book. Based on the description, I thought it would have a whole lot more to do with the book club, but it feels like the author worked in the “banned books” part just to make it more tantalizing.
Gia’s favorite high school teacher, Evan Hart, taught English and helped her start up the Banned Books Club. The basis of the club was that the book selected each month had been banned in the past—for example, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird. During her senior year, Gia received a D on a paper. She reported Mr. Hart for sexual misconduct, claiming that he offered to change her grade in exchange for sex.
When the case went to trial, Mr. Hart claimed that Gia came on to him to better her grade. He was found guilty, went to prison, lost his job, and his wife divorced him. Seventeen years later, he rarely shows up for work and drinks his day away. Cormac, Luisa, and Edith never believed Gia and have bad-mouthed her for years for ruining their dad’s life.
Because of all the animosity toward her, Gia dropped out of college and left town shortly after she turned 18 and never looked back. She visits occasionally, only staying for a few days at a time. She still runs the book club from high school with her friends Sammie and Ruth, meeting virtually once a week with a handful of the remaining active members.
Margot pretends her marriage is happy, but she is plotting to leave Sheldon. He’s planning a hunting trip, and she convinces Gia that their mom and dad need her because her mother doesn’t have much time left. This part is true. But the other part of it is that Margot secretly plans to disappear, so she needs Gia to come home.
First, let’s talk about the fact that the story has nothing to do with the book club. The only reason it seems to be a plot point is so that the club can have an in-person reunion while Gia is in town, and it’s the scene for a confrontation. It could just as easily have been a dinner with friends. Wakefield, Iowa, is apparently a very small town, and word gets around about everything, so we don’t really need the book club reunion. It could have been a Halloween party, an early holiday party, anything really.
In terms of storylines, Gia’s story is the division in the town over who believes her and who doesn’t and everyone coming to terms with the truth. Margot’s story revolves around her plan to leave her husband. Usually books with intertwined stories go back and forth between the two throughout. While we get pieces of Margot’s preparation to leave early on, her story really doesn’t kick into gear until after Gia’s story is nearly resolved. It almost felt like two books of a series put together into a single book.
From a characterization perspective, the people in this town still act like teenagers…seriously. Gia left 17 years ago, and people still ostracize her. And the gossip…good lord, the gossip. Did you hear? Did you see? Did she tell you? Did you know? I have heard that word gets around in small towns, but these people act like they are still in high school trying to get someone they don’t like in trouble.
***SPOILERS*** SPOILERS***SPOILERS***
There are also a couple of critical things that I find hard to believe, but I have to reveal more of the plot in order to share them.
Gia’s parents are friendly with the Harts in the present day. Cormac lives in the house behind theirs, and they regularly talk to Luisa and Edith. Once Gia is back in town, the Harts want to force Gia to retract her accusations. Gia’s parents don’t try to convince her to make a retraction, but they don’t come to her defense either. And the fact that they are friendly with the same people who are bad-mouthing her just rubs me the wrong way. When Gia confronts her mom about whether she believed her when she was in high school, her mom tells her she didn’t want to believe it could happen. So she just pretends like it didn’t?!?
After 17 years, Cormac asks his mom why she divorced his father because he starts to wonder if they made a mistake all those years ago in calling Gia a liar. Could they have been continuing to victimize her all this time? His mom says she didn’t have any proof, but she had her suspicions and gives Cormac a laundry list of things that didn’t sit right with her.
I understand not sharing her suspicions with her kids when they were teenagers, but they have been bad-mouthing Gia for years. There should have come a time when she pulled her kids aside and said, “Hey, I don’t think your dad is who you think he is and here’s why.” At least let them make an educated choice to hate Gia. When Cormac asks her why she never said anything before, her response was that none of them asked.
Finally, once everything comes out and Evan basically admits what he did, Gia just seems to forgive and forget what everyone else in town said about her. Everyone in town suddenly sees the error of their ways. Gia sells her business, moves back to Wakefield, and opens a bookstore called Banned Books Shoppe. She and Cormac fell in love while she was staying with her parents.
Margot’s husband goes to jail for breaking into her parents’ home and attacking Gia, so she’s able to get a divorce pretty easily. While she was in L.A. (where she disappeared to), she met someone and has a budding relationship by the end of the book.
And I guess they all lived happily ever after?
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