The Book I'm Carrying Around: Four of a Kind

Four of a Kind by Valerie Frankel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is what happens when you're a mom.  Your kids are in school, you end up on the PTA/room parent group/school performance committee with a bunch of other moms.  You try to be social while getting through the committee agenda and, if you are lucky, you actually like the other moms (b/c its rarely dads).  Luckier, they become your friends.

In Four of A Kind, four moms from different corners of the school end up on the Diversity Committee together  - three are White, one is Black; one is rich, the others range in middle-classness; one has a single child; one is single.  The basics of diversity; but they don't seem to have much else in common.  They spark upon the idea to play poker to squash the uncomfortable silence and then begin to open up to each other.  And they do become friends, even if reluctantly and questioningly.  I mean, once you tell folks you haven't had sex in 2 years and about your marital arguments, you are pretty much on the road to friendship; if not, you are terribly over-sharing.

This was an easy, light read, although with some serious, family issues going on, but it wasn't treated too heavily.  Its one of the few that I've read that has both Black and White characters; probably one of the very few of those in which the Black character was not a servant/dependent/victim needing to be saved.  There were things the mother's did that I agreed with, others that I didn't, others that made me think.  And many that made me laugh.

This was, literally, a beach read.  Water, sand, salt - good thing it was the real book not on a nook.

*Note - I received this book as an early preview from the Publisher


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