Monica Wood

Fiction 2024/ 280 pages

How to Read a Book started out with interesting characters and plot.  We have three major characters. Violet, our narrator, is 22 and was just released from prison, where she served about 1.5 years for driving drunk and killing a woman who was driving in the opposite direction.  Harriet is the volunteer who led a Book Club in the women's prison, two hours a week, for women who were interested in reading together, including Violet.  Violet happens upon Harriet in “the Outs” when she begins to live again in the real world in Portland, Maine.  Frank is a handyman who does odd jobs for Harriet, and is the husband of Lorraine, the woman who was killed by Violet.

While Wood develops each of these characters well, she does not quite take advantage of the relationships they could have together.  Especially, she does not develop Violet and Frank's relationship very well.  This is a missed opportunity, I believe.

Yet, the first two-thirds of the story is engaging, especially when Violet takes a job working with three African grey parrots.

I'm the last third, everyone turns romantic and falls in love with someone or another.  I found this rather irritating ... like a romance novel plopped itself into the novel.

But the end comes around and redeems the novel.

It is a fun, light read, especially given the topic.  You may enjoy it, or you may not. I would not suggest you urgently run out and buy it.

June 2026