Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter was the November book club pick. It has mixed reviews from our group with most of us shrugging and saying “meh.”
The fiction revolves around 1962 when Richard Burton impregnates an actress on the set of Cleopatra when he was supposed to be in love with Liz Taylor. The story follows the unfortunate actress, an Italian man who helps her, and the publicist who tries to cover it up. Chapters flash forward and backward between main and sub-characters. Complaints about the book are that the story is too fractured and the characters are not well developed. There are too many co-incidences and trite encounters for this to be a compelling read.
No one in the group even liked the cover art. The best line in the book referred to the hotel in Italy where the actress took sanctuary: The Hotel Adequate View. Our group liked this so much that we discussed naming our book club in the same vein: The Adequate Book Club, or The Adequate Book Discussion.
