Open Books West Loop Book Club discussion

Hello! Thanks to all who came to our February book club meeting! As someone who loves books, it was lovely to spend a short part of Valentine's Day with other book lovers (and multiple sweet treats). We welcomed Nick, a longtime OB volunteer, to his first meeting.

For our February meeting, the OBWL book clubbers read Sleeping on Jupiter by Anuradha Roy. Of the 9 readers in attendance, all but one would not recommend this book to a friend. The remaining reader was ambivalent on his/her recommendation. All in attendance agreed that it was nice to read some South Asian literature, although at the end of the meeting, we came up with a list of better picks for South Asian lit (see end of report). The rest of the meeting consisted of some lighthearted critique of the book, the recitation of a few quotes relating to the book, and making a list of aspects of the book that we liked despite our dislike of the book. The remaining thoughts set forth below were generally shared by the group.

There was an overall feeling that Roy attempted to weave together too many stories that didn't quite connect; the narrative was disjointed throughout with too many loose ties that didn't make sense. We agreed that there were various interwoven themes of casual violence & everyday violence in Indian culture, particularly against women, but that still there were too many threads that could not all be explored in depth. Due to this disjointed nature, we found that it was hard to care about what happened to the characters. One book clubber noted that "If Ruth Reichl had written this, Ghouri would have been Nomi's mom." We agreed that the mission Roy set out to complete was well intended, but her execution was terrible. It would have been nice for someone to have been held accountable for their horrendous actions, and we generally agreed that Nomi and Badal were the only characters who were slightly redemptive. One particularly frustrating dropped thread was "what happened to the movie Nomi was working on?"

In addition to the intensely explored theme of violence, Jupiter also had themes of religion, water & rebirth, and definitely something with the trees (but what?). Everyone seemed to have something that tied them to the past.

After a long, in depth critique of the book, we spent a few minutes listing the aspects of Jupiter that we liked (presented here in no particular order): Piku, descriptive writing (colors, scenes set), the conversation Nomi will have with her producer, Nomi (her strength to believe in humanity, wondering if she'd try to find her mom), Johnny Troppo.

We ended the meeting recommending other South Asian literature to each other that we felt hit the mark a little better than Roy did with Jupiter. A few of our recommendations are listed below.
-Behind the Beautiful forevers
-Lowlands
-The Namesake
-The Tusk that Did the Damage
-The Hundred Foot Journey
-The Fishing Fleet