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Remember that episode of Friends when Joey's reading Little Women and Beth gets sick and Joey gets scared and has to put the book in the freezer? Well, that's what I had to do with Lucy Foley's The Guest List. Not that I really wedged it between a DiGiorno and a mess hall-sized bag of broccoli. But I did stop reading it a third of the way in, much to the consternation of my book club besties. (Hi, Mom! Hi, Sis!) Why? Because its tone made me nervous.
Now, I've read more than my share of murder mysteries. But they're always either dignified and distant, like Agatha Christie, or hilarious and homespun, like all those cozies, that I barely notice anyone's bit the big one. In other words, their tone is lighthearted. You know. Sunny. Funny. And sometimes accompanied by recipes. And that little light is all that I need to go on to find out whodunit. Yet a story that's shadowed through and through, with characters as damaged as their murky dismal surroundings (even my "serious" descriptions are "silly," Rainbow Brite's Murky Dismal being as cartoonish a villain as they come), plunges me into an abyss of black-out blinds. And for a spirited sunseeker such as myself, that's a bad place to be.
That said, my mom and sister weren't really surprised that I dropped Ms. Foley like a bad habit. They know I don't do well with darkness and were very understanding. Being in a book club is funny like that, even with -- especially with -- people you know really well. The titles we choose say a lot about us and what we want and need from books.
And I know what I'll need when it's my turn to pick is something with a colorful cover.
