I currently have at least four Reese Witherspoon book club picks on my Kindle. The only one I’ve finished is Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game. It was a logical first choice as I had read the author’s previous The Woman in Cabin 10, a derivative but enjoyable suspense story.
What exactly compelled Reese Witherspoon to start a book club? You’d have to ask her. I would imagine it was a smart decision related to brand marketing. Like most actresses over forty, Reese is working less than she would like to. If people begin to associate Reese with their favorite reads, they are that much more likely to see the TV productions based on the books and to begin to associate her with their entertainment choices. It’s really quite savvy of her.
There is risk in all this, too. What if you don’t like her book choices? You could begin to negatively associate unsatisfying reading experiences with an actress’s productions.
I thought about this while I was reading The Lying Game. It has a strong premise that will lend itself to television. Four teenage girls were expelled from an English boarding school after the father of one of them was found with inappropriate drawings. In the present, human bones have washed up on a beach near the school. The girls, now women, return to the area to face the past.
What follows is a story with some Gothic twists. I can imagine that a well cast production will bring this setting and these characters to life. The book itself didn’t do much for me. For one thing, it was way too long. I also didn’t strongly connect to any of characters. “It was hard to tell where my flesh ended and Thea’s and Luc’s began,” the narrator says at one point. This is a cliche that I have read one too many times in books like this.
Books Smitten 