The Futilitarians: Our Year of Thinking, Drinking, Grieving, and Reading Hardcover – August 22, 2017

I'm giving this memoir five stars, not because it is perfectly written, but because it is so well-considered by the author and because for me it's the right book for our perilous and uncertain time. If ever there's a need for community and doubt and an exploration of the Tragic vs. Trivial planes of existence, it's now.The memoir covers a single year, 2012, of monthly meetings for contemplating works of art that question our purpose. Woven into analysis of the works that were chosen is the story of Gisleon's family history: her challenging and larger than life father and all his contradictions, the elision of her mother from hard truths about family secrets, and her tragic sisters' early and self-chosen deaths. It seems at the beginning like this might be superficial, but it's anything but. I felt a connection to the stories and the primal need for community that comes through deliberative acts of wanting to learn more. New Orleans and the catastrophic Katrina also play a major role in this memoir, brought more to light and to bear by the hurricane in Houston.

This book sounded so great I impulsively bought it in hardcover without reading a sample. This was a mistake. I have tried to read this book several times but I just can’t find it anything other than obnoxious and boring. I can’t get past the sense that the author and her friends are a bunch of priviledged and entitled children who take themselves too seriously and have had no contact with anyone who isn’t college educated or well read. This book isn’t emotionally or intellectually interesting to me and I don’t see myself ever finishing it.

This sad, funny, thought-provoking book made me want to be friends with the author and her people so that I could sit around drinking wine with them whilst "solving" the problems of the universe. A great little volume on being human within the liberating bounds of companionship.

Really enjoyed this book! Of course, when you read a book about a book club, you inevitably end up with another list of books to buy! I live close to where this is set, so the references are familiar which also makes for a nice ready. Started and finished this on my one week vacation.

The Futilitarians is a very personal and heavy read that had me researching existentialism. It is a fascinating and, at times, disturbing memoir. To me, Anne's search for the meaning of tragedies in her life was really a celebration of life.

It was an ok read, didn’t keep me interested long. Wish I chose otherwise, but I finished it and I’m done.

Heavy read . . . Reconnection with literature.

An overwhelmingly tremendous book, absolutely essential.