2For66

How to Read a Book

• Author: Monica Wood
• Published: 2024
• Type: Fiction
• Pages: 273
• Finished Reading: December 29, 2025
• Personal Rating: ★★★★★ 5 Stars
• Goodreads Rating: 4.24 (77,481 ratings)

I read 34 books in 2025 and rated 3 of them at 5 stars. This is by far the best book of the year. While it is nothing like Lonesome Dove – my favorite novel of all time – this book grabbed me from the first page like that Pulitzer prize winner did. I knew immediately I was in for a compelling story.

Violet, Harriet and Frank are linked together through the event that landed Violet (age 22) in prison. Harriet meets Violet in prison where Harriet runs a book club. Frank; well, I’m not going to spoil your reading. This novel is about grief, loss, empathy, strength, and forgiveness. The chapter where Frank and Violet first encounter one another and Harriet’s misunderstanding their reactions is absolutely perfect. I found myself groaning with shared grief for all three of them.

Each of the main characters has a contrasting family member who tries to thwart their path; mostly because they can’t see the reason and/or they are dealing with their own issues. It’s not a perfect novel: (parrots of all things); at times circumstances lean toward too convenient (e.g. Frank’s situation). And it is certainly written in a way to make us be empathetic for Violet. Told another way, where we don’t see who Violet is, and we would have a completely different take on her.

Not to get too carried away and big-headed, but I read literary fiction to understand all that can go into being human (I don’t think I’m alone in this). How to Read a Book delivers powerful insight intro humanity. In P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster comedy series Bertie – in more than one story- invokes the French phrase “Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.” To understand all is to forgive all. (Yes, there are exceptions!) Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the characters. This approach allows us to understand them. I’d say I was surprised I was able to link a comedy to this novel, but Bertram is wiser – and P.G. Wodhouse is deeper – than we give them credit for. I say – or think – that phrase at least monthly when I – or someone else I’m talking with – is irritated by a person.

I read e-books and use a color e-reader in order to track different types of highlights (yellow for plot; pink for thematic elements); I use blue for passages that have strong images or metaphors and this novel has more than I’ve can remember reading in a novel. And they are powerful: packing in a few words enormous feelings and emotions.

• “I could hear every breath my mother took, little saw blades shredding my insides, cut by cut.” 
• “Her words dropped into the room before he could grasp their meaning. They merely landed, like an unaddressed package on a doorstep. Could be anything inside.” 
• “[She] stared me down like a snake thinking hard about lunch.” 

And we do learn how to read a book: try to have empathy for the characters and think of the “meanwhile” of the story. “Meanwhile” is the important thing that’s happening while the rest of the story moves along. In a book club discussing J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey one of the book club members points out the “the meanwhile is this monster unspoken grief over a dead brother and the story is everybody in the family is having witty conversations…” [p 233]. The reader’s job is to discern what is the story and what is the meanwhile. 

I’m not alone at loving this novel; I’ve recommended it to three people and they all raved about it (and passed it along to their friends). At the end of 2025 this novel had the longest wait time at the Washington County library system. Do yourself a favor and get to know and understand Violet, Harriet and Frank.