Women's literature isn't a favourite genre of mine, so when I received A Month of Sundays by Liz Byrski for review back in June 2018, I wasn't in any particular hurry to get to it. An intriguing premise and beautiful cover held promise I might enjoy this, but I haven't picked it up until now in a concerted effort in 2020 to try and reduce my unsolicited TBR pile.
Mature female characters Adele, Ros, Simone and Judy have belonged to an online book club for years but have never met face-to-face. When Adele agrees to house-sit a property in the Blue Mountains, she decides on a whim to invite the other three women for a bookclub getaway. All four women are facing different challenges in their lives, and accept the invitation for different reasons.
The trip will be about rest, recreation and reading. Each woman is to bring along a book for bookclub that tells the group something about themselves and enough copies for all participants to read. Taking it in turns, the women will read a book a week and discuss one each Sunday, hence the title, A Month of Sundays.
Once I was able to keep the characters' lives straight in my head, I warmed to the setting and social interaction between the women quite quickly. Their book discussions were my favourite part of the novel - naturally - and their growing friendships were a 'feel good' guilty pleasure.
The problems each of the characters were dealing with were of interest, despite the fact that the women were at least two decades or more older than me. The familiar Australian setting of the Blue Mountains was also a plus.
A Month of Sundays by Australian author Liz Byrski is a novel about ageing, the joy of reading and the importance of deep and meaningful friendships. It was an unexpected delight to read and I can highly recommend it.
Carpe Librum!
