Please note that I received this book via NetGalley, this did not affect my rating or review.
This was such a great book to read in the current environment, however, the ending just didn’t stick, and I think that if Bostwick had left that part of the book alone the book would have been a 5 star favorite with me.
“The Book Club for Troublesome Women” takes place in 1963 in a Virginia town called Concordia (just think close to Alexandria and D.C. The book follows Margaret, a stay at home mother of three; Charlotte, also a stay at home mother of four children; Bitsy a stay at home wife focusing on getting pregnant; and Viv a mother of 6 who hopes to get back into nursing after a decade plus long absence. Margaret has an idea of a book club to get to know Charlotte better. She includes Bitsy and Viv because they seem like the women in their neighborhood who would be of similar mindset. The first book up, the women read “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan.
The book follows all of the women as we see the impact of this book, others, and just the general societal impacts happening during 1963 (school integration, assassination of Medgar Evers, March on Washington, etc.).
I honestly liked all four of the women in this one. Each one has a different dream, but realizes they don’t need to put down any of them for wanting something different. Bitsy dreams of being a vet, but had that dream denied to her since she’s a woman. Margaret wants to be a writer, Charlotte an artist, and Viv is happy being a wife and mother, but wants to go back to nursing.
The flow of the initial part of the book is a little slow, but once you get to them reading “The Feminine Mystique” things take off.
I found myself reading the book straight through at one point because it was so good and I loathed some of these women husbands.
The only sticky point for me was the ending. Way too much got stuffed into it. And I think working in two real life people in this fictional book just felt very far-fetched. I didn’t buy it, and it took me out of the book. Also the fast forward in the end didn’t work either. I think it would have been better to leave the book open-ended and heck, even show not everyone gets to what they dream to do and you can just keep trying for it anyway. I think Bostwick wanted to tie a nice and tidy bow that didn’t quite work.
I think the thing that makes me most sad in 2025 is that we are back right here again. We have society, politicians, countries trying to say what a woman is and what she should be doing full stop. We have proposed legislation that is going to make it harder for married women, adoptees, and transgender people to vote too. It knocks the wind out of my sails though that this book taking place in the 1960s really showed the way everyone tried to keep women and their dreams so small and we are back here again.