Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy

"Noel got by well by not thinking too deeply on anything: not about his dead-end job in Hall's; not about the hours and money he spent in Old Man Casey's pub; not about the religious mania of his parents, who thought that the Rosary was the answer to most of the world's problems. Noel would not think about the lack of a steady girlfriend in his life. He just hadn't met anyone, that's all it was. Nor indeed did he worry about the lack of any kind of mates. Some places were easy to find friends. Hall's wasn't one of those places. Noel had decided that the very best way to cope with things not being so great was not to think about them at all. It had worked well so far. Why fix things if they weren't broken?"
                        -from the novel, page 11

I selected the quote above because of the description of Noel, the main character I would say, near the beginning of the book. As you can see, he didn't have much of a life. Things changed drastically for Noel during the course of the novel!

I chose this book for our book club in part because I could check out a Book Bundle, multiple copies. A few friends had recommended it in the past. It was not a challenging read except for the MANY characters which I finally starting noting on paper to keep track of who was who. I read it in about 5 days. I liked it well enough; I suppose I will rate it a 3.

I really didn't think it had much of a plot. I guess it was more like a whole bunch of stories of people who ended up "minding Frankie."  Many dysfunctional families and some flawed individuals came into play and most were changed for the better by baby Frankie. And then there was Cousin Emily who seemed to be bigger than life, a little too good to be true.

I did enjoy the humor of some of the Irish expressions such as "Am I for the chop?" meaning "Am I going to die?" and "gave up the gargle" meaning "quit drinking."

Tomorrow our Page Turners group meets to discuss the novel. It will be interesting to hear their thoughts.
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The group met to discuss Minding Frankie and everyone liked it giving ratings of 3 and 4. The average was 3.6. Though there were many characters we decided most were likeable. We may have spent more time discussing Moira than any other: What WAS her problem anyway?  Some members had read several books by Maeve Binchy and knew that some of her characters reappear. There was speculation that perhaps Moira would show up again and have a chance to redeem herself. We decided we just might read another of Binchy's novels several months down the road.