Our March book club selection was The Woefield Poultry Collective by Susan Juby. It was a great read! I really enjoyed it. I loved how each chapter moves the story along as told by one of the four main characters: Prudence, the well-intentioned but kind of useless and mostly clueless twenty-something, Earl, the elderly farm hand who seems to want nothing more than to be left alone, Seth, the alcoholic blogger who has lost the ability to deal with people offline, and Sara, an eleven year old aspiring chicken breeder/shower who seems to have her act together more than the adults in her life. I love how the characters evolve and grow together as the story progresses. There is a great supporting cast of animal characters - Bertie, the ever suffering sheep, and Alec Baldwin, the cocky but not show-worthy chicken.
Juby does a great job of balancing the humor with melancholy. There are some painfully brutal and realistic moments when the real world intrudes upon the struggling, absurd, but mostly happy life of the residents of Woefield.
I really don't want to say much more in fear of giving something away as I highly recommend this book. It is a wonderful read and Canadian to boot (it takes place on Salt Spring). I'd recommend it to anyone.
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Got to love a Canadian book! Thanks for the review! (I love how considerate you are of future readers... thanks)!
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