Janell C

This is a sweet little predictable book; very typical of Elizabeth Berg. For readers looking for a simple, feel good beach read, you won't be disappointed. For others, looking for good, meaty literary fiction this is not your book. Some of the characters are fairly well developed and others not at all. The plot is quite contrived and all the tension that might have been explored is quickly and easily brought to not-quite-believable fairy-tale closure.

The Book That Matters Most had more potential than was realized. The storyline was really intriguing and kept me turning pages but the characters were not likable nor well developed. Ava, the main character, cannot seem to accept that her husband has left her and way too much time is spent lamenting the husband's infidelity. The book group Ava joins is very interesting and I would have loved to have seen those characters expanded. The most interesting backstory relates to Ava's mother's disappearance years before and for some reason the author chooses to tie this up in just a few paragraphs at the very end of the book with a hyper dramatic final few sentences.

Having read La Côte Basque 1965 in the 70's I was looking forward to reading more about Capote's fall from societal grace. I found this book to be very difficult to get into but promised myself 100 pages; at just that page things began moving a bit but still very much in need of some enthusiastic editing. The characters are drawn in great detail but almost to the point of caricature. This is a fascinating subject but the writing just seemed to mimic soap opera.