The Missing Something Club

This afternoon, a handful of gal pals and I sat down with some cheese and wine and gabbed about the book The Missing Something Club by William Haylon. The characters, Medicare, Katfish, Predator, Wallflower, The Maybe/Maybe Not Lesbian, and the Really Beautiful One, sound like a modern day The Breakfast Club, and in a way, I guess they kind of are! Except that those in the novel aren’t stuck in a high school detention, but in a personal purgatory of sorts.

 

The premise of the book is a group of people with seemingly nothing in common are thrown together by their own devices: their fragmented lives. They form a club that meets each Tuesday and, with a little liquid encouragement, quickly establish honest and open dialogue about how each of them is, wait for it, missing something. As my BFF Jen described it: “everyone was missing a piece of something, and the Club made them whole.”

 

From a woman struggling to rediscover herself after a devastating divorce, to a young man who goes through women the way most of us go through toilet paper, the varying vantage points are what make the book entertaining. Each of the six main characters tells their story in first-person, and once the initial confusion over the nicknames subsided, my friends and I came to appreciate how this book offers something for everyone.

 

The Missing Something Club is an easy read, and the fact that Mr. Haylon wrote from the female perspective gets two snaps and a go-on-with-your-bad-self from me! My pal Christine of More Than Mommies also noted how Haylon writes about women’s bodies: whether purposely or earnestly, he repeatedly comments on the “soft bellies” and natural look of the women. The male characters are drawn to this kind of figure, which completely contradicts what the media dictates as beautiful. Thanks for keeping it real, Mr. Haylon!

 

That said, I had a hard time “seeing” the other characters due to lack of description. I don’t know about you, but whenever I read a book, I like to visualize the characters, maybe mentally choose a celebrity to represent them in my imagination. Also, my friends and I are all Moms of young kids who are generally happy gals; we’re not really trying to fill a void in our lives (unless you count my trying to get a new washer and dryer combo out of the husband–there’s a very real void in my laundry room right now). We all had difficulty immersing ourselves in any one character, and agreed it’s because of our current demographic: content Mommies! That said, some of us were able to conjure a darker place in our past lives that would have maybe motivated us to join a group like The Missing Something Club, though we all promised we would try to keep our clothes on unlike some of the characters. *Teaser alert*

 

Thanks to Mr. Haylon’s The Missing Something Club, six mommies got to enjoy adult conversation complete with the most delicious roasted onion and garlic jam I have ever stuffed into my face. Also, wine.

 

 

Book Club Box was delivered to my doorstep, offered up that heavenly jam, a bottle of white, and a bottle of red! Oh, and the books! It was a fun way to spend an afternoon, and I appreciated the chance to read and review something that didn’t include content about potty training or breast feeding.

 

 

I was compensated to write this review; all opinions are my own.