I read this for my book club - which is wonderful because I have been wanting to read it forever. This is an uplifting work of historical fiction about women who want more, decide to pursue it and support each other in these endeavors even as the America of the 1960's tells them they couldn't. It was so nice.
The main character is Margaret Ryan and when we first meet her, she has won a writing contest from a women's magazine and is hired to write a regular column as a result. She is pigeonholed into writing what her (male) editor tells her, her husband is pissy about her not having more time for the care of the family (because why would he help?!) and her paycheck is actually less than minimum wage. The job also somewhat sparks the "Betty Friedan Book Club" (the first book they read is, you guessed it, The Feminine Mystique). There are three other women in the club - Charlotte, Bitsy and Viv. Charlotte is a woman who is prescribed Miltown, a tranquilizer, by her male psychiatrist and struggles in her marriage with her cheating husband. Viv was a combat nurse and is Margaret's best friend and neighbor. Bitsy is an avid horse lover who wanted to be a vet and is also a neighbor.
I loved that it addressed issues of race and class: Viv meets a black Army nurse who was barred from going overseas in WW2. Margaret is denied the ability to open a checking account without her husband's signature. It's CRAZY.
I LOVED this book. I wanted to be best friends and a member of the Betty's book club. The story was thoughtful, warm, and very subtly insightful about how stifling the 1960's actually were. The characters were well written and showed a lot growth over the course of the book and I could not put this book down.
5/5
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