Shanties all around!

I had been knees deep in work projects and paperwork so I decided I need a good old fashioned 'beach read' to give me a little escape. I needed a book that was all fluff, purely for entertainment purposes and that wouldn't make me think too much while I was reading it. Luckily for me there is an author who is as obsessed with the show Downton Abbey as I am and she wrote the perfect book for the occasion called 'While we were watching Downton Abbey.'

For those you who don't know (I feel sorry for you) Downton Abbey is a PBS show that starts out in 1914 England at the Grantham Estate. It is a magnificent old English estate that has butlers,  footmen, maids and all the wonderful pomp and circumstance that one associates with early 1900's upper class British life. Lord and Lady Grantham, along with their three daughters and houseful of servants provide a most gloriously intellectual soap opera that I am not ashamed to admit to watching.

 
The book by Wendy Wax tells the story of a ritzy Atlanta apartment building that has an English concierge who decides to screen the seasons of Downton Abbey once a week as a way to develop the social community in the building. Claire, a recent empty nester and full time writer, Brooke, divorced mother of two young girls whose life is in a state of frantic transition, and Samantha, the woman who lives on the entire top full of the building, married to a most desirable man who comes from old Atlanta money whom by others has been deemed 'rich bitch', all attend these weekly screenings.

Through out the course of two seasons of shows, the three women learn that your circumstances in life do not separate us as much as we think and they form a unexpected but very strong bond. Where one woman lacks, the other two step in until they all comes to terms with changes in their lives. Through the stories of these three women we are reminded that life is more complicated than the show that we put on in front of each other. Sometimes the production is more stressful than the truth of things.
 
This story is, like I said, complete fluff and predictable but that doesn't mean it wasn't enjoyable. There are just enough Downton references to keep a junky like me satisfied but not too many that someone not familiar with the show will feel excluded. Potential spoiler alerts however. If you are the kind of person who reads solely for light hearted entertainment and tend to enjoy things like Sex in the city, Gilmore Girls, or even the Golden Girls, then you will enjoy this read.