This week we are discussing Murder at the Book Club by Betsy Reavley. Ch. 19 - End.
Spoiler Warning!!! This post is full of spoilers for Murder at the Book Club by Betsy Reavley.
Trigger/Content Warning!!! This book has scenes and discussion of such themes as: fatphobia, description of violence, violent crime.
Discussion:
Jacilyn: Hello readers, may we welcome to you the final discussion of Murder at the Book Club. Finally, we know who is responsible for the deaths of Toni and Janet and the revelation was... not exactly what we expected out of this tale. So where did we leave off?
Amy receives a threatening note, and instead of calling the police, calls her husband instead. I empathize with wanting someone familiar to be there to help you feel safe, and although I don’t blame the police for being a little suspicious of her not calling about the note, I think they went a bit far after Johnny ended up almost dying at the hospital.
Michaela: I’m so confused why Amy doesn’t call the police especially when her husband even asks her to. When two people have been murdered already and you get a note saying “you’re next”.....ya okay let’s just let it go…..what? It’s not like she was distracted all day from reporting it, she was only distracted when the police showed up to tell her what happened to her husband.
Not much can really be said about this part of the story, at least for me. Beyond how horrible that situation would be and feel, I’m not sure what the point of it being in the story was. I felt that way in general about this book, but we can talk about that more later.
I was glad that Marion and Maggie went to support Amy while she was going through that. I loved that Maggie was thinking about snacks to bring, such a good friend honestly. Listen people, this may be shocking (not since I’ve suspected her for a while) but I am not a fan of Marion. I know she’s supposed to be the main good friend of the book club group but something about her and her husband bother me so much. They may be willing to help their friends but they are never urgent about it and I do not trust them. Had to get that off my chest!
Jacilyn: The worst part is that I can’t figure out if Amy not reporting the note to police right away was done purposefully to imply some sort of doubt in her, or if it was just a smudge in the plot that doesn’t seem to make much sense. Frankly, I found the suspense of wondering if Johnny was going to die or not much more riveting than the story behind the murders. My pulse quickened a couple of times while reading about the three friends sitting in the visiting room, waiting for news, but that was about it.
That being said, I don’t know what the point of Amy’s story is, at this point. I know this is a series, but it doesn’t seem like this case is supposed to carry on into other books. So was it all just filler? Something to help give the plot some interest?
Shirley’s discussion with the police kept me pretty suspicious of her, honestly. She seems to go through different moods while talking to them, and then she switches to outright aggressive towards them once they bring Kayla into the picture. They’re frustrated that they’re not getting any new information from her but I think her reactions are telling.
Michaela: I agree, I don’t know what the point of Amy’s story really was. A lot of it felt like filler to me.
Shirley’s interview was very interesting as far as her quick mood changes. She was all over the place with her answers and her emotions. I hadn’t really suspected her until that interview. Even after finding out about her husband and Toni together, I still didn’t really think it was her. There was too much doubt cast on other people.
When we followed Shirley through her work day I knew she would either be the killer or be killed because there was just no other reason to see her at work. She was so excited to spend time with Kim and learn about some new rumors which I found, again, to be kind of confusing. I think Shirley is just a confusing character for me. On one hand I get her logic, it’s logic that needs therapy but I can see where her motivation is from, but at the same time some of her actions make no sense even with her motivations. Like killing Janet but then being sad that Janet was gone, like Shirley is unhinged my friends.
Jacilyn: Shirley does feel unhinged. I don’t think she has a firm grasp on reality, and goes from seemingly wanting the approval and interest of people like Kim, to despising everyone around her. It’s contradictory and confusing. It seems like Kayla was the one consistent trigger for her, though. First with the detectives, and then again when Kim mentions the “rumors” that Kayla was spreading about Grant’s involvement with Toni, and Shirley’s involvement in the murder. I have a suspicion that Kayla’s behavior towards her parents are at least partially to do with her knowledge of the horrible things they were a part of. Honestly, that’s a really traumatic thing to have to go through and I imagine that keeping those secrets was eating her alive.
I do want to point out that in this part of the story, we yet again see the unnecessary addition of an incredibly classist and judgemental observation from Kim, when she observes that Shirley has brought with her some cheap wine. Yet again, this added nothing to the story.
I will say that I felt confident enough that Kim wasn’t going to be killed that the attack from Shirley really just didn’t get my adrenaline going in the way it was probably meant to. We knew the detectives were on the way, and sure enough, they save the day - all thanks to Janet.
Michaela: I think it was Kayla and her husband that really triggered her issues. However, even when Shirley talks about her husband she completely dismisses the possibility that he raped Toni resulting in her pregnancy. Shirley is so quick to dismiss that while at the same time hating him for having an affair while at the same time as wanting to keep him...not that one person couldn’t have all those feelings because you can’t control your feelings but it’s a lot. Kayla had to have witnessed or overheard what happened with her parents. I can’t imagine how horrible that would be for a young girl.
I totally agree with not being worried about Kim getting seriously hurt when Shirley attacked her. It just didn’t seem like the type of book to have that last bit of murder right at the end. The cops arriving just in time was very “weekly cop drama” and it wasn’t surprising. It’s not like this is the only crime novel that does that, especially since this is technically a series about the detectives so you expect them to save the day.
I have to say that Janet stalking Shirley and ending up having a video of the murder definately took me for a loop. I was not expecting that. Janet having feelings for Shirley was surprising at all but stalking her and filming her….that seems extreme. Again something that felt a little confusing to me.
Jacilyn: I am incredibly uncomfortable with how Janet’s feelings towards Shirley were portrayed. It felt like the author was equating Janet’s sexuality with the stalking behavior. I don’t know if that’s really what was happening, or if I’m just feeling overly suspicious after the bigotry I’ve read in this book. I wasn’t surprised that Janet had romantic feelings for Shirley, and it felt to me like Shirley was very aware of that. The stalking, though, I wasn’t prepared for. That came out of left field entirely.
So Shirley gives her confession, and the dots are connected, kind of, but there’s still a lot of loose threads. The most obvious one being the note that was left for Amy. Does Shirley really know about it? Does she not? Does it really matter either way? What’s the point of Amy’s little side story at all? The book even ends with Amy having what seems to be her little happily ever after… which includes asking Maggie and Marion to be the godmothers of her unborn child???? Maggie makes sense to me, but Marion doesn’t even know Amy that well outside of the book club. It was just a wholly unsatisfying ending, and I can’t say I would want to read anything else about these detectives.
Michaela: I felt super uncomfortable with the portrayal of Janet’s feelings, especially since we got none of this information from Janet herself and we don’t get to hear from her about it either. I really struggled with a lot of the language used in this book. At times it was fatphobic, classist, and then at the end was a negative representation of someone who was queer. What was troubling for me is that I could not tell if those things were specifically character traits or if they were author traits since it seemed to be almost every character in the book.
I was incredibly unsatisfied with the ending. This story didn’t really justify having such an open ended conclusion. Shirley just out right confessed but then later refused to cooperate. She also confessed to everything and the reasoning why except the note to Amy, that we don’t get a reason for. Why? Then why is it even there? Are we meant to assume Amy was next simply because she was pregnant and Shirley had hatred towards her because Shirley herself wasn’t able to be pregnant? I guess I could see that (it would fit into part of her motivation to kill Toni) but then why not have her admit it like she did with Toni? There were just too many things with no answers and things that were unresolved.
Then the ending gives Amy this happily ever after kind of feel when she wasn’t even the main character, but that’s the only epilogue conclusion we get. This is part of a book series about the detectives, to my understanding, so I would have expected the last chapter to have been about them. Amy making Maggie and Marion godmothers was so random. Maggie makes some sense but Marion? Really? I just felt in general like I got to the ending of this book and then wondered what the point of it was.
Well I think that’s it for this book, friends. We felt like we were a little negative about this book but we’re not a review club, we just read and discuss. Let us know how you felt about this book! Are we just totally missing the point of the story? Or did you struggle as much as we did? Were you surprised by the ending? We are very interested to hear everyone’s thoughts. This is our first book for Shelf Explored that we both weren’t fans of, so this was new for us! Always reading and always learning about our preferences!
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