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The Dirty Book Club by Lisi Harrison, a book review

This story about friendship is an easy read. The dialogue, not pertaining to sex, is clever.

The dialogue about the taboo subject runs the gamut from gross, "lying on a hair-filled bathmat with a vibrator," to more gross (read the book).

The main drawback is that characters have an obsession with sex, that's what brought the book club into existence, but healthy male/female relationships don't exist and when the reader thinks there may be hope, the couple(s) disband.

The relaxed conversation between club members, when it's out that the husband of one is having an affair with the other, is less than believable, even unhappy people don't like to share their partner.

Here's the line-up of characters, leave a comment on which one you'd like to spend an afternoon with talking about . . .

. . . Books?

Gloria, in order to have a comfortable, well off lifestyle must look the other way and provide "I'll be home soon" warnings for her philandering husband.

Dot, buttoned up, soap opera fan, marries her high school boyfriend who drowns his career in a bottle, when she gives him an ultimatum, he suicides his car into the window of his father's store. So she carries guilt.

Liddy, marries the Christian minister, but seeks a different God, one that will accept her lesbian lifestyle.

Marjorie, a stewardess,  represents the sexual revolution of the 60s, sex in the air, sex everywhere, including after a concert with a cop who arrested her for indecent exposure, which leads to the next generation starting with Addie.

Addie, exudes sex has it for breakfast lunch and dinner. An accidental pregnancy with the guy she likes, after his father's funeral, leads nowhere, he is with someone else.

M.J., stuck in a rut, but has a shot at the handsome doctor who wants to save the world, but his many world-saving absences leave her lonely and lifeless.

Britt spices up her life with her pot-smoking, landscaper husband by having sex with a stranger,  feels like she deserves it, and excuses herself because she never bothers to learn the stranger's name.

The stranger is married to Jules, who has her head in the clouds, ignoring that her husband would rather live out of town to work — at a gym — instead of living in town with her.

When the characters seem to have found the right man, the relationships don't stick. The crass similes, women unhappy with their lives, advice to explore your sexuality with a vibrator — until you find the right man, makes for much fun for the author, not so much the reader.

So, man or machine? I think they may have been happy either way.

Source: Library Loan




Purchase through our affiliate link, and referral fees donated to Woman of Wonder, a college scholarship fund for women.

 
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