“And maybe love is, ultimately, the best we get. It doesn’t solve everything, but in spite of it all, it’s the most significant thing we have.” (Quotation pos. 3554)

Content
Since sixteen years they meet on the first Monday of December, twelve women, close friends, and members of the cookie club. Marnie is the head cookie bitch. Every member brings thirteen batches of homemade cookies, a dozen in every package, one for every member and one for the local hospice. They eat, drink, dance and celebrate together, sharing not only their cookies and recipes, but also their story, something important that had happened during the year and inspired their choice of this year’s prepared cookie.

Theme and genre
This book is about cookies, different ingredients and lifelong experiences of falling in love, separating, family, children, disappointment, loss, sorrow, but also about new chances and hope. However, most of all it is about female friendship.

Characters
Twelve different, grown-up women and each one is special, believable and far from perfect. They care and support each other.

Plot and writing
The story takes place for just one evening in Marnie´s house. Marnie is the first-person-narrator and she and the cookie club are like a frame, which includes the twelve chapters, each one for one member, her receipt, her story and information about one special baking ingredient. Therefore, we are reading kind of twelve different short stories, not one continuous storyline, which for me was different from what I expected.

Conclusion:
A story including twelve different stories about lifelong female friendship, about personal destinies and this special yearly meeting of the cookie club. A quiet, thoughtful, but not really Christmassy book that could not completely grip and convince me. ( )

Christmas 2018 - Naughty

No. Just no. DNF'd very quickly.

With a title like "The Christmas Cookie Club" one might be forgiven for assuming this would be a lighthearted holiday read. Not so much. Within the first few minutes I listened in horror to a litany of multiple miscarriages; premature death from leukemia; adultery; and a divorce.

Happy Freaking Holidays.

PLUS, when I read unnecessary boring details, I often joke about the author writing, "Then I inhaled. Then I exhaled." I shit you not, in this book, the NARRATOR ACTUALLY SAID THAT during an excruciatingly minute description of how she was baking some pecan cookies.

The cookie recipes and ingredient explanations are very interesting and worthwhile. But the story is hard to follow as each chapter focuses on a different cookie club person and the author tries to catch you up with 12 years of past history for each person. I needed a spreadsheet to keep track of everyone. Not worth the read or time. I did not feel connected to any of the characters. ( )

The idea of the cookie club sounds like fun but ultimately it's stories about middle-aged ladies with problems. I found the party hostess way too Oprah-wise for me. ( )

made me want to get in the kitchen, do some baking and eat some cookies!! too many characters and too mushy for me!!! ( )