On an ordinary Los Angeles morning, the lives of seven women are about to become inextricably entangled, as they converge upon LA International Airport for various purposes. Suddenly, the morning erupts into chaos, as black-clad terrorists charge into the terminal, guns blazing. As the concourse becomes a killing field, six of the women dodge a hail of bullets to find refuge in a tiny staff room. Betty, a Reseda housewife, Heddi, a Jungian analyst, Sophia, a rugged and savvy mountain woman, Erika, a top-level executive, Ondine, an artist just returning from France, and Pearl, an ancient bag lady, all traumatized or injured, barricade the door and cower down, hoping to survive.
This is not an adventure nor fantasy, it is a story of coping when life becomes terrifying. The irony is the people dying are the ones that just want to get on with their lives, and have been doing so for sometime. They have better things to do than to feel sorry for themselves or to worry that life can just end. It was an interesting story and one that I think about once in a while as I go about my day. ( )

The author employed a rather odd method of telling her story. We had seven different women in the commune and we had to read their individual interpretations of the storyline. I found that tedious. Some of the chapters (which were each about a single woman) were so boring that I simply went on to the next "chapter". My personal opinion is that the author wanted to write about her personal analyses and observations of how people interact. Sorry but this was not for me. ( )

DESCRIPTION
Seven women from all walks of life become trapped for several days during a terrorist attack at LAX. Cut off from all outside communication and not knowing how or if they will be rescued, they resort to sharing personal stories as a means to distract themselves from succumbing to their fears.

CONCEPT/PLOT - 5 stars
There are a lot of layers to this book, the topmost layer being that we all have things in common, even if cannot see these commonalities at first.

Between the seven women, virtually all important variables were represented: different ethnicities, cultures, religious beliefs, upbringings, education levels, financial standing, and family histories. On the surface, the only thing these folks seemed to have in common with each other is that they were all women. Despite their vast differences and their initial judgments and distrusts, their predicament shined a light on their commonalities in a way that normally would not been seen.

An underlying layer was politics and how people misrepresent themselves and exploit others for personal gain. This inclusion really rounded out the story and ends up playing an important role all on its own.

WRITING STYLE/EXECUTION - 4 stars
The book is written in sections. Each section is introduced by the name of the woman whose point of view is being represented. In the beginning, the sections were short and it took some time to remember who was who. Over time though, each woman's section got longer and I was grateful for that. I enjoyed the stories and various perspectives. The fact that I could empathize with even character 'X' speaks volumes, as we are conditioned to hate "terrorists." Ms. Still did a wonderful job of allowing us to empathize with the characters yet still disagree with some of their actions.

FORMATTING/EDITING - 5 stars
People, cultures, locations, politics, and pyschology were all well-researched and explained. The book was well put together and polished. ( )

Commune of Women is a dramatic thriller.

Seven women have been drawn into a web of terrorism as each of them arrive at Los Angeles International Airport.

Heddie is a psycho-analyst who is traveling with one of her patients to pick up another from the airport. She is calm, cool, collected and has been raised with a silver spoon in her mouth or so she wants everyone to believe.

Sophia is a natural born leader. She is strong, caring, compassionate and knowledgeable. She carries with her demons from her past when she was a medic during the Vietnam war.

Erika is a high profile business women with a vulgar attitude and vocabulary. She believes everything and everyone should center around her and after she is shot, she is extremely irritated that her business world may come crashing down around her.

Pearl is a wizened bag lady who arrives at the airport because of friend of hers told her that the money was good. She is one person who is bound to have everything one might need in order to survive, she's been doing it for a long time and knows what is needed in times of duress. Her story is a sad one and yet she always seems to find something good in all that is around her.

Ondine is a neurotic free spirit whose has a terrible guilt over a past event she had no control over. She is currently under Heddie's care and working through her demons. She's coming out of a bad marriage and tends to run from the stresses in her life.

Betty is also one of Heddie's patients and she puts all her time and energy into plastic flowers arrangements that she is passionate about creating. Her passion has driven a wedge between her and her family. She doesn't see what she is doing wrong until her life is threatened and she realizes her values had been wrong all the time.

X is a militant who grew up in the Jafar camp in Palestine. She comes from an area of the world where walls surround her country, checkpoints are needed to go through to leave and people are systematically killed. To be a women in Palestine means you are bred of strength, determination and perseverance. She is proud of the women in her life and feels she is just in her reasons why she is attacking the airport. However, along the way she begins to see things in a new light and vows to correct all the wrongs that have ever happened to her.

Each of these women must survive four days while they are held in the airport, too afraid to leave their hiding place. The six women have no idea where the terrorists are, why the FBI hasn't come for them yet nor how they are going to survive when their only food is to be found in an employee vending machine and bullet ridden soda!

Each of them delves into their inner psyche to find the demons that have haunted them in order to find the strength to survive.

This wasn't a bad read! I truly enjoyed the women's characters, each one of them was written in a well-rounded manner and with believable back stories. My favourite of the women was Sophia, a woman who listens to the world's weave and reacts to it instinctively. She was very strong in character and belief.

I wasn't so fond of Ondine, I found her overly whiny and her maternal instincts were severely lacking. Not that she was a badly written character, just out of them all, I'd have disliked her the least if I met them as they were written.

Many of the back stories shard were wonderfully written. It was rather hard to read Pearl's for the first half of the book. She has a very bad grammar syntax and it's written that way, however, just after halfway through the book, the author uses less of this inflection and she flows better with the story. I just wished when she was telling her story the author had written with a little less syntax connotations.

The ending was a surprise and after you read it you will know that it truly peeved me, which is good but it wasn't what I had expected. The ending was good but there were several things that didn't wrap up for me. There are few minor characters who were introduced and added a huge part to the story and yet, we learn nothing about them. And truthfully, I have no idea why Erica was even in the story, it would've worked better had she interacted more or not to have her written in at all.

As you can see there are good points about the story and there aren't. I think with some tightening of some of the storylines, this would make for an excellent movie. The terrorists roles would have to be beefed up, after they attack the airport, we don't even know their thoughts, reasons nor actions. I think it would've been a plus if one of the women from the hostage situation could have been written in to give us that perspective.

All in all though, whence I started reading it, I wasn't able to put it down, so it will draw you in, even with these plot and character points. ( )

I enjoy books that not only tell a good story but take us deep into the minds, thoughts and lives of the characters in the story. A Commune of Women takes us on that journey. Seven women who could not be any different are tossed together under extremely dire circumstances and must find a way to endure by working together to survive. Can you imagine being locked in a fairly small room with six other strangers, sharing food, water, trying to help the woman who is injured and not think about the chaos and death that is going on outside that door? I sure can't.

I admired every one of these women for different reasons. I have to say my favorite was Sophia. I would love to be as able and calm as she was in such a high stress time. She never panicked and seem to be very confident as to how to go about things. I couldn't wait to find out more about her. I hung on her every word imagining myself in her shoes.

Pearl, the street lady was my least favorite. I very much wanted to like her but I had a very hard time reading her. The author wrote her using the back woods talk that is very real but was hard for me to understand. When her narratives came around the story stopped the smooth flow because I had to read very slowly and re-read a lot of her conversations. BUT, I think she had the most common sense and the brightest way of looking at things. Pearl's cup was always half full!

The plot is really right out of the news with a terrorist attack at an airport. It was scary in many places because it could happen, has happened. I don't know if I could be as brave as these women.

Get ready for be in for the long haul once you open the cover. The story takes off with a bang and never slows down until the end.

Come and see what Telly Says ( )