This month's pick is American Wife, written by Curtis Sittenfeld and published by Black Swan.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

American Wife is very loosely based on the life of the former US First Lady Laura Bush, wife of the 43rd president, George W Bush. Sittenfeld said of Mrs Bush in 2004: "She is such an easy heroine to root for -- smart and nice, but just flawed enough (she still sneaks cigarettes!) to remain likable."

In the year 2000, after the closest election in American history, Alice Blackwell's husband becomes president of the United States. The couple's time in the White House proves to be heady, tumultuous and controversial.

But it is Alice's own story -- that of a kind, bookish, only child, born in the 1940s American Midwest who comes to inhabit a life of dizzying wealth and power -- that is itself remarkable.

Alice candidly describes her small-town upbringing, and the tragedy that shaped her identity; she recalls her early adulthood as a librarian, and her surprising courtship with the man who swept her off her feet.

She also tells of the crisis that almost ended their marriage, and she confides the privileges and difficulties of being First Lady, a role that is uniquely cloistered and public, secretive and exposed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Curtis Sittenfeld (pictured below) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1975. She won the Seventeen magazine fiction writing contest in 1992 at the age of 16, and since then her writing has appeared in many publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, Salon and Glamour, and on public radio's This American Life.

A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Sittenfeld's first novel, Prep, was published in 2005, and was chosen as one of the 10 best books of the year by the New York Times, as well as picking up a nomination for the UK's Orange Prize for Fiction.

Her second book, The Man of My Dreams, was hit the book shelves a year later. Her third novel, American Wife, was published last year.

ABOUT THE book club:

This month's book club, The OK Book Club, is based in Naas, Co Kildare. It was formed a year-and-a-half ago, and it has approximately 12 members, depending on who can make it in any given month.

The club meets once a month in an individual member's house.

verdict:

The overall verdict was very mixed, with some people loving it and others -- such as Anne O'Keeffe, whose choice it was -- hating it.

"I found it tedious in the extreme and excruciatingly difficult to get through," says Anne. "I found it hard to believe that either of the Bushes could be this dislikable. I found no redeeming features in the book whatsoever."

But her view wasn't shared by everyone. "I really liked it," says member Claire MacCabe. "I thought the descriptive passages were great, although I did find the ending a bit trite, as if she was trying to redeem an otherwise chick-litty book."

"Chick lit" was a description used by many on the night, and not in a positive way.

Liz Denieffe found it easy to read -- "a real page-turner" -- but found some of the descriptive passages "downright vulgar".

Susan Miller "really enjoyed the early parts". But she felt as if the book lacked certain cohesion. "I thought the last third was like a different book," says Susan. "As if Sittenfeld was trying to tie everything together."

And the group found it difficult not to think of the characters in terms of their alleged real-life counterparts. "I hated Laura Bush afterwards," says Susan. "I thought she was really pathetic."

It was a view shared by most of the members. "I thought she was probably the most boring woman in the world," says Niamh Roche, who "liked the first third" of the book but "found the rest excruciating".

Rosemary MacCabe really enjoyed it. "I found it really engrossing," she says. "I thought the characters were all constructed very neatly, very cleverly, and they were very full, you could really experience it with them."

But Lorraine Seery disagreed. "I hated the relationships, the character development, the writing," she says. "From the very first page, I hated it -- I thought it was purely a rhetorical device to drum up sympathy for George Bush."

Sympathy for Laura Bush was thin on the ground.

"She was almost stuck in a fantasy for her whole life," says member Philomena Rossiter. "Nothing could excuse that." But Philomena liked the ending, "because it brought you right into the White House, which was very interesting".

NEXT MONTH'S CHOICE:

White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

If your book club would like to take part in our monthly book club feature, or if you are reading next month's choice along with us and would like us to include your thoughts on the book, write to: dcashin@independent.ie or Irish Independent Book Club, 27-32 Talbot Street, Dublin 1.

- Declan Cashin

Irish Independent