An event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; A disaster.
It just so happens that one of my son’s 5th grade vocabulary words last week was calamity, and I’d say that the definition pretty much hits the nail on the head when it comes to the events and outcome of the Audrey and Elvis Trivia Night. There was a budding relationship, truths came out, and we finally found out who died and why. Let’s dig in!
So Many Calamitous Catastrophes!
It all started with the year 6 teachers serving pink fizzy cocktails called Not on a School Night made with a miscalculated booze to mixer ratio. It happens to the best of us. Many years ago, I may have miscalculated ratios on Limoncello cocktails while hosting a New Year’s Eve party. They didn’t result in murder but to this day, the mere mention of Limoncello causes some of my friends to cringe in horror.
As alcohol tends to do, it caused all of the the conversations at trivia night to be a little more animated than normal. A prime example of this was Madeline tearing up because Jane was wearing red lipstick, but honestly, I was a little excited for her myself. She had a new haircut, and Tom who wears plaid button down shirts to costume parties, serves delicious coffee, and apparently likes women much to everyone’s surprise seems to have his eyes on her. I was totally rooting for these two!
Perry and Celeste arrived, and like everything else in their lives, the outward was shiny and beautiful but the stuff behind all of that was dark and ugly. At this point, I assumed Perry was going to go after Celeste in some way causing her to retaliate and kill him. This was my theory from early on in the book, and I was sticking with it. I had very little tolerance for his apologies and promises to get help, and I was happy to see Celeste stand her ground in the car.
Madeline was in rare form and her exchange with Bonnie was priceless – Petty, but still priceless. Whether you like confrontation or not, you have to admit that you were ready for Madeline to say exactly what was on her mind. There was so much pain and frustration in this situation, and when Madeline said “bugger niceness,” I was right there with her, and when Bonnie started talking about the health benefits of forgiveness, I rolled my eyes like a teenager.
An Unlikely Suspect
Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t finished the book yet, I don’t want to ruin it for you, but I have to talk about the ending. You’ve been warned!
Last week I mentioned my friend who kept calling me to talk about the ending of this book. Our conversation seems the most appropriate way to reveal what came next.
Me: “Hello.”
My Friend: “Perry is Saxon Banks!”
Me: “Yes!”
And then she essentially hung up on me to finish the book. That was it. It was the point when all of the characters and stories came together. As I mentioned, I suspected Perry would be the one to die. What I wasn’t prepared for was that Bonnie would be the one to kill him. Sure, it was mostly an accident, but we learned why Bonnie was the peace loving person we saw throughout the book – self preservation. If she embraced forgiveness and focused on the good then she could forget about all the bad. And apparently, there was a great deal of bad.
I liked the closure that Moriarty offered us as the book wrapped up. Of course, we all wanted Jane and Tom to get together and seeing Celeste be strong enough to talk to others about her situation was rewarding.
“So we’re done then? You’ve got everything you need? Quite a saga, eh? We’re all back to normal now, except all of us parents are being extremely nice to one another. It’s kind of hilarious.”
There you have it! We’ve wrapped up another book club book! Did you like how this one ended? How did it compare to the other books we’ve read? This will be the last book of 2014. Happy Holidays! See you in the New Year!
