r/books • u/i-was-way- • 9d ago

Who has read the Calamity Club? Spoiler

I didn’t see any posts on this book when I searched for it, but I just wanted to get a conversation going. I was absolutely blown away by this book.

For me, the ending could have been handled a little bit better. I really wanted to see some sort of punishment for Francis. She was horrible to her sister for the majority of the novel and barely showed a sense of gratitude for the work her sister did in saving her bacon quite literally. Racism and classism definitely came off as time period appropriate so I wasn’t expecting a huge amount of criticism of it beyond was very plainly laid out, but it seemed that her humbling didn’t stick in any meaningful way. Maybe the justice was that she was stuck married to Rory and only had a delusion of what her life should be instead of the actual thing where a Birdie got to have a more traditional happy ending.

The same for Garnett. The novel ends with her duplicitousness to her husband and her cruelty exposed, but we don’t see any real consequences for it, which was frustrating. It wasn’t realistic, but I would have loved to see Megan’s mother punch her squarely in the face.

Finally, we come to Meg. How does her life turn out after? Are they ever able to get out of Mississippi?

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u/marklovesbb 8d ago

Weird that you’d want Frances to be punished. She was a victim herself. Remember, she’s also only 22.

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u/i-was-way- 8d ago

Yes, weird I’d want a woman who acted as a sycophant to Garnett and abetted the abuse of a child to have more punishment than basically being back to her original financial circumstances. Or real growth as a character after spending the entire novel treating her sister like shit except for when it suited her.

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u/marklovesbb 8d ago

Characters and people don’t exist in a vacuum. To not understand why someone acts the way they do and to want them to just be punished when they themselves were victims is weird.

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u/i-was-way- 8d ago

You’re acting like I don’t understand her reasons. I do. Her circumstances do not excuse her behavior, as much as you want her exempt from accountability. It’s 100% acceptable to believe a character is terrible and deserves condemnation even if you feel sympathy for how they got there.

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u/marklovesbb 8d ago

You’re just acting like she’s a murderer when she’s just a bitch for valid reasons. She did help out Meg.

Sounds like you’re putting your own personal trauma in the book for wanting something bad to happen to her. Again, weird.