January 2020 Book of the Month Club

[Willow's Mom]

Did no one else think Ben had a screw loose? I am glad there was a happy ending. And I hope Ashley and Ben find happiness.

Ben was insane. That is a simple statement of fact. He was suffering from major depressive disorder and might well have fit the DSM criteria for schizophrenia. I'm not a psychiatrist so I can't diagnose exactly which mental illness he had.

I do know that our society would never let a homeless walk around loose on the street talking to his dead wife for years; we have police officers and mental hospitals and psychiatric medications for that. We wouldn't let waiters or maids or janitors walk around like that either because nobody wants to look at that (expletive deleted) so anyone could just say that they were afraid the mental health was a danger to itself or others and the police would clean up the mess.

But Ben had the funds and social capital to pay his bills, go to work, do his job, and buy property. He had a certain amount of respect to make people look the other way and not forceably incarcerate and drug him against his will, but was he really better off than regular people?

Ben was alone with his pain. His intelligence and all of his hard work in getting through medical school was still of value to a world that didn't care about his grief or the mountain between himself and the rest of his species.

This was all very understated and may well have been unconscious or unintended on the author's part. I don't think the book was written to be political, but it did take place in the 21st century United States and the author made this setting believable and relevant for future generations.

 

[Willow's Mom]

Dont fancy Ashleys chances of healing him.

She can't. Life doesn't work that way.

I'm wondering if there are any widows or widowers reading this who feel like weighing in. They do walk among us even though it is so much easier to turn a blind eye. Maybe we are all guilty of exploiting the Bens in our lives.

 

[verna davies]

Some of my friends are widowed after many more years than Ben and whilst life is never the same, only the individual can move themselves forward. I realise a life or lives cut short is tragic but I think either Ben didnt realise the depth of his mental state or he didn't want to admit it because being a doctor he would have known exactly what to do to get help. Any views?

 

[Willow's Mom]

Q2
I found a lot of the story credible but not all. With the injuries Ben sustained I doubt he would have been able to put her shoulder back into its socket not straighten the leg bone. Both take a lot of upper body strength and with broken ribs and a possible collapsed lung he would have been in too much pain. Does anyone else think it could have been possible, am I being a cynic?

Because of personal life experience, I found Ben's adrenaline far more credible than the character of Grover's wife. Let's face it, if anyone did a stupid, it was Grover. His wife was the antithesis of Ben: flat as a paper doll, archetypal as a Greek Goddess, and blatant "Reynolds Brand Disposable Literary Foil". Nobody could possibly be that much of a saint. The author might as well have named her "Old Mother Marriage", and yet our minds accept this because we so much want to believe that love can be tied up lovingly with all the loose ends explained and put neatly in a box we can keep in the back of the closets of our minds, right next to the one labelled "childhood".

Perhaps they had some sort of a suicide pact. Perhaps she knew that flying was such an essential part of who Grover was that he wouldn't be Grover any more if he relinquished his pilot's license. I got the impression that they were getting up there in years, and that flying a small plane into your 70s might ber analagous to driving a car into your late 80s and 90s.

Even if she was some sort of a saint, not enough time passed between Grover's death and her encounter with the main characters. She was left wondering whether her husband was alive or dead for a long time. His body was not recovered promptly or treated respectfully.

But we want to believe in happy endings and we want to believe in marriage. Her marriage is definitely over and she tells us, the readers as well as the character, that it was unquestionably worth it, she would do it all over again and not change a thing, and that she is ready and content to move on to the next chapter of her life without Grover.

If anyone who isn't me still remembers the positives oif what "Titus 2 woman" means, that's what I saw in Grover's wife. She is the epitome of a Titus 2 woman. We are human and can never achieve her level of putting others' needs above our own, but the picture of a new widow in the throws of fresh grief advising these young people gives us a goal to work towards.

It beats "You kids get off my lawn!" anyway.

Was this book originally marketed towards people Ashley and Ben's age or more towards 50-70 year olds?

 

[rubysmama]

I'm loving reading everyone's thoughts.

Many other things stretched belief. But OK. As I said, fiction often requires suspension of disbelief.

I watch the soap opera Days of Our Lives, where characters die and even have their organs donated, and yet a few years later when the actor is put back on contract, the character is discovered to have been alive all along. So I'm good at suspending disbelief in fiction.

 

[Mia6]

Does anyone think it would have added or detracted from the book if there had been a couple of chapters on what happened to the relationship between Ben and Ashley.

I think we as the reader knew they were ending up together by the end of the book. I usually don't read romances but this was different, with the crash, being stuck, injuries, having to find food for survival, the whole Rachel thing. And yes, Jim.I thought Ben had a screw loose.See a shrink for God's sake!!

Spoiler: This was in the film but not in the book

They had sex

 

[rubysmama]

You know, I never really thought too much about Ben's mental state, as I was more interested in their survival. However, thinking about it now, I wonder if he and Ashley stayed a couple, or if she ended up "running for the hills".

 

[verna davies]

If she had any sense she'd run for the hills. He was mentally damaged to go to the lengths he did.

 

[rubysmama]

Another book club month has ended. Thanks to everyone who read along with us and participated in the discussion.

Hope you'll join us in our February read. February 2020 Book of the Month Club