Desperate Housewives Highjack the PTA!
Ellen Meister has whipped up a batch of literary brain candy with her first novel, Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA. If you have an appetite for witty dialogue and a well crafted plot, you may have a hard time sticking to your daily page rationing. That was certainly my experience as I scarfed down all 372 pages in two days.
When Applewood Elementary School is pegged as the perfect location for a new Hollywood production, featuring the heartwarming story of a divorced dad coaching his son’s athletic team, hearts are not the only things heating up. After all, the possibility of meeting George Clooney would send any self-regulating PTA into a hormonal frenzy. Meister’s debut novel is full of sexy scandal and carpool politics, with racy sub plots that propel the story forward, creating a page turning romp through upper class suburbia.
But wait, Meister offers more than just the guilty pleasure of empty carbs. Under Applewood’s brilliant facade lurks deeper character. Her heroines are complex, illustrating that a woman can be intelligent and needy; privileged and tragic; loving and unforgiving. Meister’s characters, like women everywhere, must learn how to leverage their strengths and weakness to attain true success.
The relationships between the characters are also satisfying, evolving from basic external perceptions to an understanding of internal motives. The heroines are thrown together by chance, but it is their mutual support that makes them friends.
Beneath the passion driven plot lies a traditional female narrative of internal realities manifesting in the external world. But unlike the elusive musings of the modernists, Meister’s playful style and clear writing lets the reader have her candy and eat it, too.
Tomorrow MM will feature an interview from the author Ellen Meister.
Order your copy of Secret Confessions of Applewood PTA from Amazon.com.
