☊ THE SUPREMES AT EARL'S ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT by Edward Kelsey Moore (✮ ✮ ✮ ✮ ✮)

Nothing beats starting a new year with a five-star read!  Last year I only had two the entire year, so they are pretty rare for me.  But Ladies of PBT, what were you thinking?  I ask for suggestions for relationship books that will not put me over the edge at the moment and more than one of you came up with this one?  My word!  Everyone dies in this book!  (Or so it seemed to my over-sensitized perception.)  However, for some odd reason, the book was okay for me; I cried, but I laughed, too—a lot.  So I thank you for your suggestion. 

Leading off an extensive cast are the Supremes, three vibrant women from the small town of Plainview, Indiana, who bond as girls, support each other through all of life’s less stellar moments, and remind each other of the humor in existence (and not always in a mortal body).  Through these women the reader comes to know their neighbors and parents, who run the gamut from comfortingly normal to out-and-out bizarre.

This is one of those novels where one would be hard-pressed to explain a plot.  It is more a meander through lives shaped by a small town and circumstance, which might sound less than scintillating but in Moore’s hands becomes a journey of worth.

And the journey doesn’t end with death.  I think that is why this book was more of a comfort for me than an instrument of depression in the wake of my daughter’s passing.  Picturing our Winter up in Heaven, or even shadowing us all—with Eleanor Roosevelt in tow—couldn’t do other than make me smile.

Helping me interpret the story were narrators Adenrele Ojo and Pamella D’Pella.  I appreciated the humor, which came shining through in both of their performances and think they both did a good job giving individuality to the characters.  However, the narration was very slow (I sped up to 1.5) and there seemed little point in having two narrators alternating chapters.

This is definitely a book that I recommend, but if you are someone who needs a faster paced novel, it might not be your thing.  I love good character novels, so it was perfect for me.