February, 2013: The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty

(Book #34) A short time after we started this group, I began keeping a journal of all of our literary clambakes. At some point I decided I should have the hostess record the events of the gathering, but the journal would stay too long at one house, not be delivered to the next or the next and soon there was no record except those items I could remember. In the journal for this meeting, I’ve written: Geri hosted tonight — a very quick return to duty after hosting Christmas.  No notes about the food or our thoughts about the book.

All that remains is the review I wrote on Goodreads: As a fan of historical fiction, I enjoyed the book and its references to things like the musical Shuffle Along and the notion that Lysol (yikes) was once used as a form of birth control. But, in general the book didn’t seem to have the arc of a story. It was more memoir than novel. There were so many references to Cora’s corset and while reading I wondered where all the talk of her corset was leading, but it was just a detail in a diary.