The moderator of the Elberon Book Club, held monthly at the Elberon Branch of the Long Branch Free Public Library, won 10 copies of this title from bookmovement.com. Since that book club reads fiction almost exclusively, she passed them on to me. The Nonfiction Book Club at the Main Library read Blue Genes for our January selection.
The members who attended the January discussion felt, as I did, that Blue Genes, while extremely well written, is a difficult book to read because of its painful subject matter. A number of us found that it brought up some of our own issues with our own families. Some of the members felt that it helped them to better understand bipolar disorder, or manic depressive illness, as it is sometimes called.
I would recommend this book to any book club whose members are willing to tackle such a difficult subject honestly. The list of book discussion questions provided on the Doubleday website is excellent. Rating: 3.5 stars for individual use; 2 stars for book club use.