The Meryl Streep Movie Club by Mia March
Heartburn is one of my absolute favorite movies and I love pretty much anything with Meryl Streep. That’s why I can’t wait to dive into Mia March‘s novel, THE MERYL STREEP MOVIE CLUB. Here is a summary of the book and a great review from Kirkus.
SUMMARY:
In the bestselling tradition of The Friday Night Knitting Cluband The Jane Austen Book Club, three women find unexpected answers, happiness, and one another, using Meryl Streep’s movies as their inspiration. Three estranged female relatives—two sisters and the cousin they grew up with after a tragedy—are summoned home to their aunt’s inn on the coast of Maine. Thirty-one-year-old Isabel Nash McNeal is reeling from her husband’s affair, but a secret pact she made years ago may keep her from the one thing she wants most. Twenty-eight-year-old single mother June Nash promised her young son she’ll finally track down his father, and her search will lead her where she least expects it. Their cousin, twenty-five-year old Kat Weller, rocked by her mother’s shocking announcement and the arrival of her cousins, accepts her boyfriend’s marriage proposal—then has her “yes” tested in ways she never imagined. Every Friday night, Isabel, June, and Kat reluctantly get together to watch the films of their family matriarch’s favorite actress—Meryl Streep—and find themselves sharing secrets, talking long into the night, and questioning everything they thought they knew about one another, life, and love. Through surprising and heartfelt discussions of movies such as Out of Africa, The Bridges of Madison County, and Mamma Mia, the three women unexpectedly discover who they really are and what they truly want.
KIRKUS REVIEW:
When Lolly Weller summons her daughter and nieces home to The Three Captains’ Inn, her announcement that she has been diagnosed with cancer is just one of many life-changing secrets to be told.
March’s debut novel uses the films of Meryl Streep to illuminate these women’s lives and to drive away the shadows that dim their happiness. After their mother and father die in a car crash, Isabel and June Nash are taken in by their Aunt Lolly, who lost her own husband in the same crash. Lolly’s daughter, Kat, gains instant sisters, but grief tinges the familial bonds. Now grown up, gathered back under Lolly’s roof, and drafted into Friday Movie Nights, these young women begin to reconsider the choices they have made—and the opportunities ahead. Like the heroine of Heartburn, Isabel is reeling from her husband’s affair. Handsome veterinarian Griffin might know the sting of infidelity, as well, and Isabel is certainly drawn to him for more than their shared pain. Kat has been all but betrothed to Oliver since they were toddlers, but she’s not sure if she is more ready to marry Oliver or to run off to a Paris patisserie. Defending Your Life makes her wonder if the real shame is in missing the opportunities life offers. Perhaps the exotic Dr. Matteo Viola is such an opportunity. Like the daughter in Streep’s Mama Mia!, June’s son, Charlie, has never known his real father. To help Charlie finish his family tree project, June agrees to once more search for John Smith, but maybe Henry Books is a truer father for Charlie. And she can’t deny her own attraction to him for much longer. But which movie mirrors Lolly’s past? What secret does she hide still? And why has she watched Out of Africa only once in her life?
A heartwarming, spirit-lifting read just in time for beach season.
