Required Reading: The Night Our Book Club Needed a Cold Shower

For more than 33 years, my book club has been meeting monthly to discuss some very important and impactful literature. I write that statement with a giant dose of humility, because in this group of highly educated, well-read, and insightful women, some of whom devour several books a month, I consider myself a pretty average plot reader who learns as much from my fellow club members as I do from the books we read.

Over the years we’ve taken on a whole list of Booker and Nobel Prize winners, a few Russian novels that required a family tree sketched out on the back of a cocktail napkin, and made one Herculean effort to dissect the work of James Joyce. I’m not kidding. This group of bibliophiles reads, discusses, and critiques, and sometimes we even reach out to authors to let them know what we think of their work.

And because we cherish books, we also love independent bookstores. So when a new shop named Blush Bookstore opened nearby, touting a growing number of romance readers, we decided to step outside of our normal genre and read a romance novel. We considered it a little light reading for the summer months. We were not prepared for just how “hot” our summer was about to get.

What Ever Happened to Fabio?

Back in the 1980s, “bodice rippers,” as they were known, were largely structured around themes of forbidden love and tortured passion. They almost always featured a cover illustration of a man known simply as Fabio, the stand-in hero of the decade ready to sweep any woman off her feet with his bulging biceps, chiseled cheekbones, flowing locks, and piercing gaze.

The cover art alone meant that reading them was a covert operation. You devoured the steamy storylines under the covers with a flashlight, or in the bathtub with the door locked, and you certainly didn’t pull one out in the pediatrician’s waiting room while your toddler played with the germy blocks.

Romance No Longer Undercover

Today’s romance novels are a different story altogether. The covers are bright and sweetly illustrated, with romantic couples who look like they’re about to share a latte at a charming little bakery. You could read one on a crowded flight or in the bleachers at your granddaughter’s soccer game, and no one would be the wiser. The romance novel has officially come out from under the covers, and as we soon discovered, so has the writing.

Thanks to a recommendation from The New York Times (you read that correctly), we selected a book that we thought would be a modern take on the classic romance. I think we realized in the first few chapters that there was a whole new, very explicit definition for the word romance. And speaking of definitions, there were more than a few passages that sent me running to Google for information. I may need to clear my search history before someone asks to borrow my laptop.

A Hot Summer Night in More Ways Than One

Of course, book club meeting night was an absolute hoot. Our usual discussion questions (What are the main themes of the book, and what is the author saying about the human condition?) were off the table, and no one volunteered to read passages from the book to showcase the author’s use of poetic language.

At one point the entire group screamed with laughter when one member recounted that she’d been listening to the audiobook in her car on the way to her local repair shop for an oil change. Forgetting that the book would pick up right where she left off the moment the engine started, she unknowingly shared a particularly climactic moment from the story with the entire all-male service team. She didn’t realize what had happened until she went to pick up her car and not one of them could look her in the eye. She’s decided to find a new repair shop.

What 33 Years of Friendship Teaches You

Giggles aside, the story brought up a unique opportunity for this group of women who’ve been through three-plus decades of marriage, divorce, motherhood, illness, and worse to discuss how romance, love, and passion look and feel at this stage of life, with relationships, and bodies, evolving in new ways.

We followed our foray into “romance” by returning to more familiar ground with a contemporary novel inspired by none other than William Shakespeare. No Google search required for that one. Still, it’s nice to know that after 33 years together, we can still surprise each other.

As for those young mechanics, I like to think they learned something that day, too. Mostly that the women handing over their keys for an oil change, reading glasses perched on their heads, are far more interesting than they look.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What’s your book club normal type of reading material? Have you switched around to other genres from time to time? What feedback could you offer?