The Book Mistresses​​

  Alice Munro's novel Dear Life, a collection of short stories, received the Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize. Our group discussed the different stories through their similarities in setting, social status, economical status, sexual indiscretion, life altering events, and character choices. We wanted to see the common connection, why they were grouped together. As it turned out, those repetitive topics were the common denominators that united the collection, it was not a singular storyline or the any multiple use characters that gave a  common thread. We were curious why the author chose to end the stories without giving closure to them.The final three stories were autobiographical. They shared the many of the same characteristics as the other stories. Conjointly, our group wondered aloud if there was a moral message Munro wanted to get across to her readers. No definitive answer was found. One of our members brought to light that Munro wanted to connect the reader to her stories by giving them all the same feel. Comparing it to entering a home and no matter what room one was in, that person would have the same feeling, though no room was the same. We agreed the author accomplished that. Usually, we discover why a book received a notable award. Yet, that cannot be said regarding, Dear Life. However, Munro did a wonderful job developing her characters, the setting, Would we recomend this book? Possibly, it  went beyond some of our scope reason. Hopefully, someday we will understand why it got great acclaim.​