A non-literary fiction book, this was just okay--light reading. A spa out in the sticks of northern England offers a discounted rate for 10 days over the Xmas holiday. This group of bourgie women gather at this place and bond around the jacuzzi, telling their life stories, almost all of them about men who have done them wrong. ( )

A dreadful and dreary book about dreadful people. The idea was to tell stories of women staying at the spa, interspersed with the narrative of one of the women's life. However, none of the women ever became whole and real and the stories were so unlikely it did not work for me. The ending was inconclusive and rushed and no one did anything at all meaningful. Fay Weldon would not be my first choice of novelist to read, but I gave her a fair trial and won't be bothering again. ( )

Weer een fijn boek van een schrijfster met een duidelijke mening, wijsheid en humor. Ik vind elk boek van haar een treffer, al zijn er een aantal iets minder dan andere.
In dit geval: Saunageheimen. Een aantal vrouwen raakt met elkaar opgesloten in een kuuroord. Het personeel is naar huis doordat het salaris niet meer werd betaald, en door het weer zijn de wegen slecht begaanbaar. Alle vrouwen vertellen hun verhaal, het een schokkend, het ander verrassend, en weer een ander verdrietig, soms zelfs onbetekenend. Al met al een goed te lezen boek, over het altijd interessante onderwerp van (het gedrag van) vrouwen en hun niet zo dagelijkse beslommeringen. ( )

Vrouwen vertellen elkaar hun levensverhaal. Teveel van hetzelfde, oppervlakkige levens waarbij het lijkt alsof het alleen maar gaat over moeizame relaties. Het boek leest wel vlot. ( )

Weldon, as always, produces sparkling dialogue suffused with wit and mischief

Ten high achieving ladies are gathered together in the week between Christmas and the New Year, at the expensive Castle Spa, seeking, through Botox, aromatherapy and general all round pampering, a new beginning to their lives. The Ladies lounge around in the Jacuzzi, drinking champagne and eating chocolate telling each other the stories of their lives. Starting with the Trophy wife's tale: her spell in a Greek prison has left her in serious need of a makeover; the Brain Surgeon's tale: of twins and mistaken identity; the Judge's tale: of the sex change which allowed him to judge the pleasures of the bedchamber from both male and female perspectives. The manicurist, the public speaker, the journalist, the company director, the ex vicar's wife, the screenwriter, all share their stories, ending with the stepmother's tale, a reversal of Cinderella's fate, with the stepmother as victim...Sparkling, witty, always compassionate and occasionally libidinous, Fay Weldon's new novel recalls Boccaccio's late medieval masterwork, "The Decameron". Boccaccio dedicated his book to the ladies of his time, who were forced to hide their amorous passions under a veil of discretion, while men were free to indulge theirs. ( )