Ponder: The Banned Book Club

There is an old adage that you can't judge a book by its cover. Well, neither can you judge a book by its title, as I learned from The Banned Book Club by Brenda Novak ©2024. Yes, the feisty lead character Gia did start a club featuring the books that were banned from the high school library where she attended seventeen years ago. That club was a commonality that bound her with her high school friends but, do not be fooled, it was hardly the focus of this novel.

The book does have suspense and keeps the reader engaged. However, the driving drama points of this book were three depressing topics:

• Gia and Margot's mother is dying of cancer and needs support and help from her two daughters
• Gia's younger sister Margot's struggles with a verbally abusive husband and plans how to escape him since his family is relatively wealthy and has a strong presence in the town of Wakefield, Idaho.
• The purported sexual misconduct of Gia's high school English teacher creates a situation of "he said versus she said" that divides the town in two camps of opinion that makes a hometown return very awkward and difficult for Gia nearly two decades later

Brenda Novak is one of my repeat authors. I have rated her thriller novel Before We Were Strangers five stars, but that rating is not her norm. I have enjoyed her Silver Springs and Whiskey Creek series. Most of her books I have given three or four stars. The Banned Book Club is of similar middle-of-the-road caliber. It kept me engaged, curious, and wondering how it would end, plus there was a bit of romance interjected to lighten the mood. Amazon dubbed the book as, "a  feel-good romance with drama, friendship, and a love story set in a small American town", a description I think is misleading. But, far from being deep contemplative literature, or the other extreme of a "feel-good romance", it still entertained and made me consider the plight of both victims and perpetrators of misdeeds. Amazon readers rated it at 4.5 stars with two-thirds of its readers awarding it five stars. I still maintain that The Banned Book Club is worth three stars. 

★★★☆☆ Better than average; not a waste of time