August Meeting

What is this? A blog post pertaining to a Wine & Spine meeting that happened relatively recently?

You bet!

This month we read Still Alice by Lisa Genova and discussed it at our book club meeting on August 18th. (Psst you can check out our meeting schedule by clicking here) This meeting was at Zap's house and let's just say that she takes the cake. Not only is her house gorgeous, homey, and cozy, but she has cats! One was perched on her coffee table like a centerpiece and another was hiding from humans. 

Zap made a taco bar! How modern and Pinteresty. We LOVED it. She had hard and soft shells, ground turkey, ground beef, all the toppings you could imagine, chips, salsa, and queso. Also she had about 15 bottles of wine to choose from. We all made ourselves a plate and headed out to her patio.

 Side note: her house is spotless and her patio table umbrella has built in lights. We were in awe to say the least.

This meeting started out the same: we ate, we caught up on our lives (new jobs, travel plans, boys, new school year, and sales at stores). Eventually we began discussing the book which only three of us read successfully. Two additional Wine & Spine members read Still Alice but were unable to attend this meeting :(

We gave those non-readers a summary of the book and started to discuss it. Like actually discuss it. We talked about the plot, the characters, what we would do in each character's situation, and the truth behind the book. This book hit home to some of us because most of our grandparents are on the "pretty old" side and sometimes they experience dementia or random forgetfulness. It also made some of us think "maybe I have early onset Alzheimer's." That's not true...yet! There was a debate over the two covers of the book. Some of us purchased the movie version of the book and others purchases the original cover...

  

It just so happened that the non-readers didn't like to read the book because of the cover. Their reasoning was "the mustard yellow just automatically made me feel sad and I didn't want to read it anymore." Okay guys.

Look for our book review on Still Alice coming soon!

This meeting was extra special because we had a new member join us! That's right, we recruited a member so we can't be all that bad! We'll call her A since she's in med school and may save your life one day. The best part is she offered to host September's Wine & Spine meeting which means she wants to stick around. Wow! The day of the meeting she texted us asking, "is there anything I should bring?" To which we responded, "A tolerance for swearing and a sense of sarcasm." I think we warned her appropriately :)

We finished our meeting by discussing a change in the next book, (check under the "2016 Books" tab!) cleaning up, and taking our usual picture :)

Girl on the Train Review

It's time to review our second book! Finally...

Girl on the Train was, what we thought it was supposed to be at least, a psycho-thriller that was a mystery. We knew there was a lot of hype around this book given that it's being made into a movie. But we had mixed reviews on this one. Many of us liked the change of pace from the Me Before You book. Hint: you can read that review here! 

Maybe it's just the procrastinating college students in us, but we thought this book could've been shortened by about half. Yes the information in the first 3/4 of the book is helpful for understanding the whole solving-of-the-mystery part, but honestly we could've gotten the picture if Paula Hawkins cut it shorter. 

We all agreed that Rachel was 100% crazy and we all felt bothered that she knew of her personal issues but did nothing about them. We all also thought that Anna was annoying but rightfully so--her husband's ex-wife was a little cray cray. Cathy was Rachel's only saving grace in the book. One of us said, "Honestly, Cathy wins the MVP award." #yougoCathy 

We really didn't understand the red-haired guy on the train with Rachel. We couldn't tell if him and Rachel had a fling one night or if she was confusing her stories again (wouldn't surprise us!) If we were in Megan's shoes, we couldn't figure out what we would do. She was in a rough marriage with a jealous and over-bearing husband but she had 0 family members to rely on. On top of that, she's still overcoming something from her teen years but not doing so in an appropriate manner. What we do know is that the ladies of Wine and Spine WOULD NOT cheat on said husband with multiple men. 

#50shadesofnothanks

Another quote from one of our fine bookclub members "the only good part of this book was when the story picked up in the last 20 pages." Okay so it was like the last 80 pages but still. It's pretty clear where our wine glass ratings fall on this one...

July Meeting

Well here we are! Our second meeting was a success:)

We all showed up to Nico's house around 7pm and the pizza and wings arrived promptly afterward. Thank god. We devoured our pizza and wings, drank some vino (of course, and chatted about life. Katie updated everyone on her love life, or lack thereof, and she gained the support of the Wine & Spine gals on a certain child of the devil ;) After about 45 minutes of chatter we moved into Nico's living room and sat on her comfy couches. Her house was freezing from the AC so we snuggled up with blankets. Katie took notes and Sarah sat on the floor, of course. We discussed the book, veered off for a little bit, came back to discussing the book, then talked about our fourth book. We couldn't believe we were already picking out our fourth book already! We are reading machines.

The MVP of this second meeting was Meg C for bringing a homemade cheesecake! You can see it in the picture below :)

Please notice the wine bottles

Side note: some of our moms and moms' friends are in very exclusive, long-running book clubs but they were in shock to find out we had a blog. Wine & Spine is moving forward! 

Look for our book review coming soon!