How To Read a Book

How To Read a Book (2024) by Monica Wood was recommended by someone in my book group and I highly agree with her recommendation!

The book follows three characters in and around Portland, Maine. Violet Powell is a 22-year old woman in jail because she was driving drunk, crossed the double-yellow line, and the accident killed a beloved kindergarten teacher. She went through the trial, was convicted of manslaughter, and is now serving her twenty-two month sentence. In prison, she tries to keep to herself, but finds that the book club, led by retired English teacher Harriet Larson, who the women in prison call “Bookie,” is the one bright spot in her days. But she’s grieving, as her mother died shortly after her conviction, and when she is released, her religious family wants nothing to do with her. Her sister picks her up, and gets her an apartment far away from their small town, in Portland, where Violet knows no one.

The widowed Harriet, a late-in-life English teacher who raised two girls and her niece after her sister died, picks the books and leads the discussion in the book club in the women’s prison. Her niece is imminently moving away for graduate school, and she is finally facing an empty house.

Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, has just started helping out at the local bookstore as a handyman. He’s noticed Harriet before, but is too afraid to say anything. His wife was the kindergarten teacher that was killed in the accident Violet Powell has served time for, but the secret he’s been holding is that she was on her way to a family law attorney, as she had just told him she wanted a divorce.

One day all three meet in the same local bookstore, where Violet wants to get a copy of the book they were reading when she was released, Harriet is picking the next book for the group, and Frank is working. Startled by Violet’s presence, Frank drops a piece of glass he was working with and runs away, scaring both Violet and Harriet. But Harriet and Violet talk, and Harriet invites Violet to dinner, in violation of all of the rules prison volunteers have to comply with. But it’s clear Violet needs a mother figure, and Harriet isn’t quite done with providing guidance for others. After some posturing from Harriet’s niece, Violet is recommended for the job the niece is vacating, as a lab assistant for a professor who is researching learning and language acquisition in African grey parrots.

Through some questionable choices Violet makes (as so many of us do at 22), and in attempting to reconcile with her past and the loss of her mother, Harriet and Frank come together to support Violet. Frank is such a kind and forgiving man–I loved him as a character! Woven throughout are thoughts about the books the book club was reading and the fascinating abilities of the parrots, who are usually dismissed as “bird brains.” I so enjoyed this journey through Violet finding hope and forgiveness after her mistakes, and Frank and Harriet finding late in life love with each other.

I consider it fat-positive; although there were some descriptions of body size of the women in prison, these descriptions were mostly neutral. Before Frank and Harriet became intimate, she told him that she was “a 65 year old woman who loves ice cream” and Frank was undeterred. In an earlier scene, Frank thought about his deceased wife’s exercise regimen and protein smoothies, and seemed to prefer Harriet’s softness.