ANGRY HOUSEWIVES EATING BON BONS by Lorna Landvik

Here's a book that is somewhat reminiscent of THE SAVING GRACES by Patricia Gaffney, but only better. Five women who live in the same neighborhood become life-long friends in ANGRY HOUSEWIVES EATING BON BONS, Lorna Landvik's latest novel. If you loved PATTY JANE'S HOUSE OF CURL, you will certainly love BON BONS. Both books are very different, yet they have a distinctive Landvik flavor.

As the story opens, we are introduced to the women, who are sitting in a hospital room visiting Slip, who is one of the members of the Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons book club. The other members reminisce about their pasts: Audrey, the sexy one; Merit, the shy and beautiful one; Faith, the one with the many secrets; Kari, the older of the 5 women, widowed at a very young age. In this prologue, the reader is very aware that Slip is ill, and her friends watch vigilant, crying their eyes out.

From there, we move back to the past, when Faith Owens first encountered some of the other ladies on the block known as Freesia Court. Faith, who was still getting used to living in the cold Minnesota winter, finds herself without her husband one cold night, because he is out of town on business (again) and so she's left to fend for herself and her twins, Beau and Bonnie (mere babies). All of a sudden, the power goes out and she's left in the dark. As she freaks out, worrying about being attacked by a burglar, she notices that there are some of the neighborhood women playing outside in the cold snow: Four of them, in fact. And to her horror, they are playing with snowballs and throw one right at her window, as she is looking out at them. She goes outside to have a talk with them, but for some reason she decides to join in their fun, and before she knows it, she's having the best time ever.

After their snowball fight, Faith invites the women into her new home, the first time she's ever entertained there in Minnesota, and from that point her friendship with these women begins. And soon, they start a book club, where they meet once a month to share munchies, discuss books, but mainly to find an excuse to get together.

Each chapter starts off with the book of the month, the book moderator for that month, and the reason why the book was chosen. Each woman's personality comes across on those first few lines, and it becomes more apparent as the reader gets to know each of the five women better. The five grow together, along with their children, and they go through myriad's of events. They cry together, and they laugh together. They even fight together. But the bottom line is, they are friends through everything, and they experience and grow with the changing times, from the 1960's to the 21st century.

There isn't one main plot in ANGRY HOUSEWIVES EATING BON BONS. However, there are many subplots, each one involving each of the five members of the club. I found that each story was interesting enough on its own, but they each added to the overall book about the friendships of these five women. I recommend this to everyone who likes a good 'women's lit' book. It's probably not for everyone, but anyone who enjoyed THE SAVING GRACES by Patricia Gaffney will most likely enjoy this one!

Meet the women of Freesia Court, the angry housewives eating bons bons. There's Audrey, the sexpot, always showing too much cleavage and leg; Merit, the shy, insecure beauty married to a monster; Faith, who spends every day in fear that her hidden past will be exposed; Slip, the self-assured, political firebrand; and Kari, a women widowed too young with a secret of her own. Join these ladies as they take turns hosting each book club meeting, and travel the often rocky road of life, through marriage and divorce, kids and grandkids, triumphs and disappointments, and all the ups and downs that make life such a grand adventure. And through it all they realize that sharing the love and support of good friends make it all the more worthwhile..... Lorna Lankvik's well paced masterpiece is both poignant and uplifting as it follows the lives of these five women from the late sixties, rocky seventies, the drama of the eighties, and into the nineties. Her entertaining prose is crisp and engaging, filled with witty dialogue, and vivid, laugh-out-loud scenes. But it's her brilliant characterizations that really make this novel dazzle, and Ms Landvik brings each book club member, as well as even the most minor player, boldly to life on the page. Angry Housewives Eating Bons Bons is a sensitive, heartwarming story told with great truth, insight, wisdom, humor, and love, that celebrates the warm and deep friendships that keep us all going through the good times and bad. As Faith tells the reader in the opening prologue: "A few years back, when I finally got smart enough to go to a therapist, she asked me how I had held things together all these years. I didn't take long to come up with an answer. "That's easy. I belong to a book club." Laugh, cry, enjoy!

Five women, neighbors, meet in the early 1960's in Minnesota and form the "Freesia Court Book Club", but that name evolves into "Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons" from a snide remark of the husband of one of the members. These women share their lives - their marriages, children, politics, and of course their love of reading, over the course of the next thirty-plus years. The characters are an interesting mélange of suburban housewives - Audrey, an independently wealthy woman who doesn't leave home without baring her cleavage; Slip, the politically motivated feminist rebel; Faith, who has a past she'd rather forget; Kari, a slightly older widow who adopts a bi-racial baby; and Merit, the beauty who is married to the beast. Each chapter is written in the voice of the host (not hostess - Slip feels that feminizing nouns is demeaning to women), which begins each chapter, along with the book they are reading - which ranges from Love Story (they hated it) to The Total Woman (they really hated it - or was that me?) to On the Road (loved it) to A Confederacy of Dunces (thought provoking), along with the reason chosen or food served or highlight of the meeting, bringing a varying perspective to everything going on their lives and a nostalgic (for me) look back on the past few decades. This is obviously a book aimed at reading groups, yet it doesn't come off as a commercial attempt at such, but rather a creative and fascinating look at the role of women over the last part of the twentieth century - the books are just an added bonus.

Granted I had very high expectations for this book written by Lorna Landvik considering how much I adored her first book Patty Jane's House of Curl. And granted it's hard to always measure up with two books in a row. But I never expected to be as disappointed as I was with this second offering by Lorna Landvik. As charming as her characters were in her first book and however compelling events were in Patty Jane's House of Curl, they unfortunately fell very flat in this her second title.

Essentially the book delves into the lives of two families brought together by friends who are now wives and mothers. The women, now in their 40's, have been friends since their high school cheerleading and prom queen days. Devara is a bit pudgier now still married to her high school sweetheart and the mother of two daughters. Her friend, Bidi, on the other hand has maintained her girlish figure, is married for the second time and the mother of a daughter who is the star hockey player on the once all male hockey team. And then there are the husbands, which include Sergio who adores his wife's daughter, but secretly yearns for one of his own and Dick who wants to open a nightclub in the basement of his home.

Your Oasis on Flame Lake offered little for me in the way of entertainment. Even the description of a harrowing experience and its consequences failed to move me emotionally. And unlike the characters from Patty Jane's House of Curl who still remain with me years later, these characters were almost wooden and less than memorable.

It may be regrettable now that I enjoyed Patty Jane's House of Curl as I much as I did. Not only didn't I like Your Oasis on Flame Lake but I also closed the book on Landvik's third title, The Tall Pine Polka Tree after almost 100 pages when the plot was going nowhere. I still have her fourth published book to read so there is some hope. But if that proves not to my liking I can always go back and reread Patty Jane's House of Curl and once again visit with old and dear friends.

I liked Lorna Landvik's first book, "Patty Jane's House of Curl," but "Your Oasis on Flame Lake" is even better. BiDi and Dev have been friends since high school; now they are married, with kids, and still living in their small Minnesota hometown. "Your Oasis" tells of the crises each faces within the short frame of a year or so: infidelity, a violent attack on BiDi's daughter, an addiction to pills, and more (I don't want to spoil the plot). There's a lot packed into the book, but Landvik skillfully shows the emotional impact of these events on both families. Landvik states in the reader's guide (at the back of the book) that she considers this a more thoughtful and less emotion-driven book than "Patty Jane"; but I think "Your Oasis" also benefits from its contemporary setting and the more compressed time period ("Patty Jane" takes place over a much longer period of years). The characters are believable and very real, like people you know. The dialogue is particularly well-done and rings true. Once you get a few pages in, it's a hard book to put down: smart, funny, touching "chick lit" that is a refreshing change from the urban professional scene of the post-Bridget-Jones genre.

From where I sit (on top of a hill overlooking Island Lake at sunset in the NorthWoods of Minnesota), this work rings true. Landvik has a thoughtful, realistic ability to develop characters that engage not only the reader, but their spirit as well. Your Oasis made me want to hang out with these folks, have a latte with their daughters, bring warm gingerbread over for a fall chat. After falling in love with Patty Jane's House of Curl and its ditsy cast of characters, I couldn't wait to see how Landvik would approach her second novel. Was Landvik a one-hit wonder? Thankfully, NO. This realistic (especially the sunsets) look at mid-life and family crises left me feeling like I'd want these folks for next-door neighbors. With this second novel, I'd rate Landvik right up there with Jane Smiley, Anne Rivers Siddens, and Anne Tyler.

"Patty Jane's House of Curls" is a novel centered around Patty Jane, a deserted mother, Harriet, her sister, Ione, her mother-in-law, and Nora, her daughter. The story starts in the mid 1950s and ends in the early 90s. Patty Jane runs a local beauty salon. Her sister Harriet plays the harp and Ione keeps the salon in Norwegian pastries. In the course of the story there are tragedies, untimely deaths, fateful encounters, and sudden terminal diseases.

That the novel has so many improbable events isn't so much an issue as they were used clumsily get rid of inconvenient characters or tie up loose plot ends. The men were either unbelievable (Clyde, Reese, and Avel-unbearable wise and angelic) or cyphers (Thor). The one positive characterization was Thor's profound ambivalence with wife Patty Jane's pregnancy. This was a standout.

There are many tragic events in this novel. However, it is too upbeat for Oprah to ever include it in her Book Club. This is something Kelly Ripa would pick for her Book Selection. This being "Four Strong Women Weather it all" type of book.

This is the life of two sisters, Patty Jane and Harriet...they surmount a difficult childhood and both find the love of their lives only to be met with tragedy. This is a northern version of Steel Magnolias. The women are strong and fiesty. Patty Jane marries Thor (yes, Thor) and plans her life with him, a mystery disappearance leaves Patty Jane with a young child on her own. But she isn't on her own, Harriet is there, forcing her to go on with life. Harriet falls in love herself with a very unlikely suitor. Again tragedy hits the family. I liked this book very much, from its strong characters to a familar locale. It is a fast read and very enjoyable. I will read Ms. Landvik's other books.

It looked like a quick and easy read for the plane ride and I really didn't have any other expectations for it. But was I ever in for a ride!! I never anticipated the mixed emotions that I got from reading this book. It was funny, sad, sweet, charming and heartwarming and I loved all the characters. They were easy to keep track of and I felt like I was right there with them all. I know that when a book makes me cry (especially on an airplane), that it has touched me in a very special way, and I really want to share this feeling with others. I have recommended this to my book club and we will be reading it for group discussion to be held the end of July. I can't wait to talk about this with the other members. I LOVED IT!!!! Now if we could just get Ms. Landvik to come to our meeting........

I absolutely loved "Patty Jane's House of Curl" and "Your Oasis on Flame Lake". But what's happened to Lorna's writing? "The Tall Pine Polka" was like a car accident...you don't want to look, but you feel compelled to. The characters in that book were so unbelievable (only a Minnesotan could come up with a movie title like "Ike and Inga"), I had to finish the book to discover how much more conviluted the story would become. But enough of the Polka.

"Welcome to the Great Mysterious" is a slight improvement. The relationship between Conrad and Rich was wonderful, but I just couldn't see this self-indulgent, self-centered "Toast of Broadway" becoming such fast friends with the woman down the street with the bad perm. I don't want to give the plot away, but unlike "Patty Jane" and "Oasis", the story line is predictable, and, like Lite Beer...less filling, but tastes, uh, okay.

Despite (or perhaps BECAUSE OF) her absurd vanity, Geneva Jordan is a great character. Try as she might, she can't quite give in to her inflated ego. She reluctantly agrees to do the right thing by journeying to Minnesota to baby-sit her 13 year old nephew who has Down's Syndrome, while her twin sister, Ann, and her husband go to Italy for a month for a much deserved vacation. Here's where some things become somewhat predictable. She learns her good intentions aren't enough to properly care for this child and they have all kinds of daily difficulties. She, as expected, comes to cherish their relationship and rises to the demands made on her, and, of course, she meets a great guy. What saves this book from predictability is Geneva's absolutely hilarious introspection and that the story unfolds against the discovery and rereading of The Great Mysterious. The Great Mysterious is a forgotten treasure of a scrapbook which is also a sort of game devised by Geneva and Ann one rainy pre-teen weekend. The answers to the big questions asked in The Great Mysterious, reach through the years to this menopausal diva and guide Geneva as she grapples with all the conflicts of her current life. This is a warm and funny book with just the right amount of tragedy.

I laughed. I cried. I got up in the middle of the night because I had to finish reading it. It wasn't that the book was full of surprises.It's simply a good story. Landvik makes you care about her characters. The common thread to her novels is that she writes about people in a way that makes you want to keep finding out more about them.I look forward to more books by Landvik.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book -- almost as much as Patty Jane's House of Curl. I loved the quirky small town atmosphere, and I always looked forward to finding out what the charming characters were going to do next!

The story revolve round a group of lively coffee-lovers in a small town, the Tall Pine. Central to the story is the lovable Fenny Ness and her friend Lee. A summary of the story will not do justice to the book as all the characters in the book, no matter how small their roles were, made the whole book came alive. The story brought in Hollywood, romance and rivalry, and traces of tragedies, but through them all, the characters remained true to themselves and their beliefs. The whole book is so lively, so lovable that I found it hard to put down.

Reading the book, I felt as if I know Fenny, Bill, Lee and gang all my life, sharing their laughter and tears. It was as if I am part of Cup O¡¦Delight. It made me feel inspired and encouraged at the thought that there is some place in the world where faults are accepted, where rules can be broken gracefully and where love conquers all.

This is the kind of book you save to give to your sister or best friend. It's a great read, very interesting characters. Both the men and the women are three dimensional and grow throughout the book.

Having grown up in Los Angeles, I can appreciate the movie ambiance. Lankvik gets it down pretty well, with a good understanding of the peculiar hold that tinseltown sometimes gets on folks. Yet, it isn't one of the nine million Hollywood noir books that have gone on so tediously elsewhere. The people are real people, in Hollywood or in Minnesota.

I found myself thinking about the book all during the workday, wondering if it would be possible to sneak away to read one more chapter before night time. Now that's a book!