Cup of Coffee Book Club discussion

Miri was our main character but there was such a varying mix of characters and families - which character and their story did you enjoy the most?

First of all: how many strong, amazing women doing their thing can one book hold? Irene, Daisy, Rusty, Christina, Leah, Miri's schoolteacher Tiny, even Christina's annoying older sister at the boutique. All keeping their families and communities together, taking care of business and looking out for people around them, having come through depression, war and disaster. Some of the most realistic depictions of women and their concerns, deepest wants and reflections I've read for a while.
But of course, after saying all that, it was Miri. She's the heart and soul of the story and the way she goes from a young girl having sleepovers to a sexpot in her mother's borrowed heels while navigating the usual turmoil of love and friendship against a backdrop of meeting her long lost father AND three major disasters in eight weeks is jaw-dropping.

It is certainly a book about strong females! When you think of how Blume treats her 'darlings', with even the cheating Mason being portrayed as a good person who you can sympathise with, it is even more shocking that she kills off some secondary characters so drastically, such as Ruby. It gives a raw realness to the events, entwining the victims lives into the story before killing them off, meaning they are not just statistics but individuals.

I definitely agree that Miri is the heart and soul of the story and therefore it is her that the reader connects with foremost. I really admired the way that Christina developed over the course of the novel, initially being a background character, and then coming in to her own.

Yes, I know what you mean about the back stories for the victims of the plane crash. By the time of the third one, as she was introducing the stewardess, I had such a bad feeling and then the outcome wasn't what I was expecting.
And for all that there was a whole town's worth of characters it really felt like they were well-rounded, you got to know them. Even the 'minor' characters like Christina's bitchy sister.
Mason could have been all bad at the end, but you got a realistic sense of who he was and where he was coming from, a flawed, mixed up individual without the benefit of Miri's home life to back him up. The detail at the end of how he'd kept in touch with Irene nearly broke my heart, of course Irene would want to know he was ok. What a great grandma she was!

I like Miri, she was realistic, reasonable, warm and caring. I also liked Leah, (spoiler). I forgot about Irene and mason keeping in touch, tgat was sweet. All of the charactors were good in tgeir own way I think.