BOOK REVIEW: "Third Girl from the Left"

"Third Girl from the Left" by Martha Southgate

I had a tough time with this book; at least to start. It was heavy on the sex side! And that threw me for a loop. There was all kinds of sex, sex, sex. I felt so prudish and as a result, I stopped reading the book for a day or so. I could not see the purpose of what I thought was gratuitous sex.

The book was supposed to be my reading groups July selection. I sent them an email with my early thoughts. Unfortunately, we ended up not meeting in July and thus did not have to read the book. I thought that we would table it for future use.

Well, future use ended up being September. We had a really good discussion; including comments on all the sex. Some folks did not think that it was a lot of sex especially since the book started in the 70s time period.

Other highlights:

• discussion on the mother-daughter relationships


• discussion on lebianism


• The Tulsa riots

I noticed that some of the characters and events were under-developed like the daughter or the main character, Angela.

Overall, I thought that the book was okay. It was distinctly different than Southgate's previous work, The Fall of Rome. I pushed myself to complete the book. I was thinking: I am not a fan of urban fiction and I want to read different stories about different people and here's my chance to do that.

Here's a link to a Q&A w/Southgate about the book.