I read a Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick. It is the same author that wrote Absolutely Truly. The book is about four girls in sixth grade (middle school) and the girls are all very different. Their names are Jess, Cassidy, Emma, and Megan. Cassidy plays hockey, Jess lives on a farm, Emma wants to be a writer, and Megan wants to be a fashion designer. At first they don’t really get along, but then they become bffs. It starts with their mothers starting a book club, when Emma, Jess, Cassidy, and Megan weren’t getting along. They read Little Women in their book club. I think the book club really brought the girls together.
Cassidy is brave, stubborn and self conscious. She is brave because she got pushed into the boards during hockey, but she kept playing. She is stubborn because she made a plan to tryout for hockey even though her mom told her “no” a thousands times. Cassidy is self aware because after she was really disrespectful to her mother, she realized she had been rude. Even though she realized what she said was wrong, in the end she didn’t apologize which I don’t think was right, but at least she realized!
I thought it was interesting the way Heather wrote the book. She wrote it so that the chapters or sections were either Emma’s, Jess’, Cassidy’s, or Megan’s perspective. I thought it was interesting because I’ve never read a book written like this and I like it. One of favorite parts was when the girls became friends, because it released a lot of tension between them. That I didn’t enjoy too much, it felt like one huge sass-off between the girls. A quote I thought was important was “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” This quote is important because the girls are learning how to steer the ships. I think steering your ship means to manage life.
I enjoyed this book, but it did have a slow start. The reason why is that at first they had to introduce the main characters (Jess, Emma, Cassidy, and Megan) which took time. I liked it because there were always these little events that kept the story exciting, like The “Beauty and the Beast” play. I found some beautiful language in my book. Since we marked beautiful language in Color Me Dark, I thought I would do it in my book. I also wanted to mark it because there were some good beautiful I liked: They’ll be ripe soon, just thinking about the way the thick purple skin burst when I bite down, releasing the sour juice inside makes my mouth start to water.” “My voice is as sharp as the blades on my skates.” “I fly up and down the rink, free as a bird.” “I close my eyes, feeling its thunder echo in my bones and in the hollow part of my chest.”
I would recommend this book because it is very different. It is different because it isn’t really one big plot, there are little events in the whole story. I think there is more books in this series but I don’t know. This author of this book doesn’t only write kids books she writes adult books as well. I rate this book three stars – it was pretty good.
