We Are All Welcome Here -- Final Discussion

Happy Friday!

I have a jumble of feelings about this book.  Overall, I liked it.  It's a nice story, but I think it was trying to cover too many topics.  It would have been awesome if it stayed on Diana/Paige and the civil rights stuff with Peacie and LaRue or if it did Diana/Paige and the Elvis angle more in depth.  I think with all the different angles it had it didn't fully do the side stories justice.  I would love to read something else by her in 2013.

1. Why do you think Diana likes to play with Suralee

2. What do you make of Dell’s courtship of Paige? Were you surprised by his treatment of her? Disappointed? How do you think Diana feels about their relationship, both while it is happening and once it is over?

3. Berg chooses interesting and appropriate names for a few of her characters, such as Peacie. Do these monikers enrich the characters, in your opinion? Do any other names stand out for you? Why?

4. At the end of the novel, Diana tells us that she says a prayer every night, and that she always thanks her mother. Diana adds, “I tell her I’m fine. I say I’m happy. I say she was right.” What do you think she means? What was Paige right about?

5. If you could ask Elizabeth Berg a question, what would you ask?

6. Overall, what were your thoughts on the book?

I am a complete dope and December got away from me.  I did not post a suggestion post or do a poll.  However, I did send out a tweet to those who normally participate and we will be reading Those Who Save us by Jenna Blum.

Info: For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald.

Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the dramatic and heartbreaking truth of her mother's life.

Combining a passionate, doomed love story, a vivid evocation of life during the war, and a poignant mother/daughter drama, Those Who Save Us is a profound exploration of what we endure to survive and the legacy of shame.

We will have two discussions, the first over the first half  on January 11th and the rest/whole book on January 25th!

Thanks for participating in book club in 2012! ;)