The Literary Cupcake

Date: October 4, 2009

Time: 1:00 pm

Attendees: Malinda, Meg, and Lina

Host: Jenn

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens was the topic of this month’s meeting. Although almost everyone got through the book, I attended the meeting 40 pages shy of the ending. (Yes, I am the founder and slacker of the group!)

We discussed many things about the book and  I invite our members (and others who have read along) to share their thoughts and opinions with us.

Jenn mentioned a difficulty in getting through the antiquated language in the book. Finding that some words were just so unfamiliar to her that she needed to refer to several dictionaries as she read.  Meg had a copy that contained some notes to help with comprehension and she found that useful once or twice.

Here are some topics we discussed:

How did you feel about Pip and his relationships in the book? (i.e., with Joe, Herbert, Estella, Miss Havisham, the convict, Orlick, etc.)

What are your thoughts on Miss Havisham?

How do you feel about Mr. Jaggers?

What is your overall feeling about the book?

Can you draw any comparison to this story (written in 1860-61) and our lives today?

How did you feel about how nicely/neatly the stories came together and were wrapped up at the end?

Please share any thoughts or  feelings you may have.

I believe that overall our group enjoyed the book. We found some humor in the characters and the situations Dickens wrote about.

Next Meeting/Book

On choosing the next book we discussed that we could either choose a book as we did last time, by drawing from our top choices, or by choosing a host and allowing the host to choose the book.  Meg quickly volunteered to host, as she was very excited with her book suggestion for next month!

We will be reading a young adult novel, A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray.

The next meeting will be hosted at Meg’s house on Friday November 6th, at 7:30pm.

Happy reading everyone!