Unshelved book club meets at 1:00 pm on the second Wednesday of every month. Books are selected 3-6 months in advance. Anyone interested in discussing the selected monthly book is welcome to attend!
This month, Unshelved is reading And they called it Camelot: a novel of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis by Stephanie Thornton.
Summary:
An American icon gets the fictional biographical treatment in this engrossing novel. Jacqueline Bouvier is in her early twenties when she meets the dashing John F. Kennedy, a congressman from Massachusetts whose political star is on the rise. Marrying into the sprawling Kennedy family presents some difficulties, but Jackie wins over the Kennedy men, forging an alliance with patriarch Joe. As John ascends into progressively higher offices, Jackie is often left to face the crises of her life—miscarriages, depression, her husband’s infidelity—on her own, suppressing her feelings to present a glamorous façade to the world. The focus is on the highs and lows of Jackie’s life: the early years of her marriage, her renovation of the White House, her husband’s assassination, and her subsequent relationships with both Robert Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis. Jackie was a notoriously private person, but Thornton’s (American Princess, 2019) author's note details the situations where the historical record is unclear. Readers will quickly realize that the fairytale world of Camelot wasn’t what it seemed and that Jackie’s story is full of hidden pain. An excellent choice for fans of historical fiction that explores the inner lives of women.
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