Too many characters made too many flawed decisions. I would keep the mystical value of the story, but 3 people wandering the lands outside the school were a bit far fetched. I would elaborate on Betsy and Abel's romance.
The movie was well done and stood close to the story of the book.
However, we chose to read another novel by Alice Hoffman, "The Ice Queen" for June's selection.

We had mixed feelings about this book, with some not liking it and some loving it. We had a longer discussion with this book than any others and it was good to see how it affected each person in so many ways. It is good that we are not all alike.

We had a hearty and lengthy discussion covering all aspects as to how these two parents chose their path in life and how each constantly enabled their partner along every step of the way. We discussed the many chances they had along their lives to improve conditions for their children and how they looked the other way and chose the other way countless times over and over again justifying their actions with elaborate schemes and stories.
We all connected in some way with the story, be it an experience of our own, of a friend or a relative.
A frustrating read of not wanting to put it down and yet wanting to throw it down.
A story of intelligent people whose eccentric personalities just take over and where common sense is nowhere to be found.
An amazing survival story of the children and how they pulled themselves up and out of their poor, nomadic life.
This story shows how just one person can change the lives of many, like the one person Lori wants to be like that visited the school. Lori worked, saved, lost, and struggled to get to New York City. She finally did it because of that one person who visited the school and Lori herself was that one person to her siblings who followed her path into a level of life that brought food, comfort, hard work, and rewards.

This book was written by a woman who was born into a world where women are unbelievably suppressed into being submissive to the men of the Islamic religion. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an activist for Muslim women and this book takes us though her road to her own freedom. She shows us how it all starts and how even tho the beatings were done by the mothers to the daughters, it was to protect them in this barbaric land. Horrible things happen to the women if they do not do what is expected of them. You know they can't even walk on the streets alone. They must be accompanied by a man of the family. They must not have any skin or hair showing lest they temp the men to lust.
This book was difficult to come back to because of the atrocities done to the Muslim women, but it is a must read because this is happening today and it opens our mind to what drives these people to hate any one of the modern world and what drives them to bring us down. It is difficult to imagine that true change can ever take place in such a backward world with religion being used as a power to keep things as they are.

Our book club had a fantastic discussion. We all loved it, felt it was closely written along some of the same lines as Mitch Albom's "Tuesdays with Morrie" book, but we all had interesting things to say about the characters and the two compared clergymen and what their personalities and purposes in life were. Makes you want to go out and do some good in the world.