The plot of Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons is comparable to Sex in the City meets Forrest Gump. Lorna Landvik’s book features the lives of five housewives who start a book club in 1968 and follows their reading choices and personal lives for the next thirty years.
Sex in the City
The Angry Housewives are typecast characters such as are found in many popular books and television shows.
- Faith is a southern belle type whose history of neglect, alcohol abuse, and poverty results in her creating a new life for herself. She spends most of her energy maintaining the image of the life she wants and hiding her past from everyone including her husband.
- Merit is a stunningly beautiful daughter of a pastor. She is sheltered and naïve. When she attempts to break away from her father and his restrictions, she finds herself in an abusive marriage, which she attempts to conceal from everyone who cares for her.
- Slip is the liberal, political activist whose has a tiny build, red hair, and take-on-the-world attitude.
- Kari is the childless, widowed wife of a judge who mothers and cares for those around her.
- Audrey is a voluptuous, sex-crazed bombshell who happens to have clairvoyant abilities.
Forrest Gump
The five characters in Angry Housewives are neighbors living in Minneapolis, MN. During the desperation of cabin fever they start a book club. After the initial introduction to the characters, the readers begins a guided tour of the role of women as it evolves from the group’s beginning in 1968 to its 30th anniversary in 1998.
And much like Forrest Gump, we see how the lives of the women change against, as a result of, and in response to the historical changes of the United States during that time. We learn of the experiences of various characters during the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Sexual Revolution.
Ordinary Lives
The women of Freesia Court live ordinary lives. They have their struggles but they are the struggles that we have read in books or watched on television numerous times. In fact, at one point in the novel, Slip is waiting for her daughter to finish piano lessons. The piano teacher’s husband shares with her all the intimate details of the lives of the characters in his favorite soap. Slip thinks to herself “Wait a minute, if you want soap opera, come down to Freesia Court.”
However, it is the ordinary lives and predictability of this book that creates its appeal. A reviewer from Midwest Living is quoted on the back of the book as saying “A guilty pleasure…this light, snappy read may be her best yet.”
If you want something with deep themes, intricate plots, and complex characters, don’t read this book. However, if you are interested in an easy, fun read that you can enjoy without straining a single brain cell, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik is a good choice for your books-to-read-list.
Landvik, Lorna. Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons. Ballantine Books. 2003. ISBN 0-345-44282-2
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