April 2020- Becoming by Michelle Obama / MArch- Bird Box by Malerman

Ok, so we can't meet because of Coronovirus lockdown, but if you send me your impressions I'll  try and make a coherent document of it.

The Previous book 'Bird Box' by Josh Malerman was a book that no-one wanted to read after seeing the preview. We had read Room a year or so ago and thought that this would be on the same line. It was about people being cooped up, as we all are now. Here is the Amazon Review - Watch out for the Coronovirus!

"Most people ignored the outrageous reports on the news. But they became too frequent, they became too real. And soon, they began happening down the street. Then the Internet died. The television and radio went silent. The phones stopped ringing. And we couldn't look outside anymore.

Malorie raises the children the only way she can; indoors. The house is quiet. The doors are locked, the curtains are closed, mattresses are nailed over the windows. They are out there. She might let them in. The children sleep in the bedroom across the hall. Soon she will have to wake them. Soon she will have to blindfold them. Today they must leave the house. Today they will risk everything."

Becoming: My thoughts: 
It seems to me to be obviously ghost written, but it is an easy if long book. I skipped part of her upbringing, and by the time that they were esconced in the White House I had had enough. Obviously about the trials of being a partner to an untidy brilliant man who can't work to a clock. Even with those constraints it raises my esteem of Barack Obama.   Mark - 6

Other thoughts from Zoom on-line meeting
- We think it is written by a ghost writer. the way it is written is not how a person trained as a lawyer would write. 
- We got how she was reluctant to go to the White House
- It was informative rather than Literature (No Plot!)
-  Comments about how once she was in the white house, she wasn't allowed to just go into teh kitchen and make something for herself, she had to prepare a menu all the time. Before they went to the White House they had a chef to make their meals becasue they were so busy on the campaign trail, and they took him to the White House with them.
- Comparison between Alison son-in-law and Obama!