The Book Club for Troublesome Women
In Virginia in 1963, four women begin a book club. They are reading a controversial book, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Margaret, a middle-class housewife with three children, is the founder of the club, and is going over and above to prepare for it, as usual. Charlotte, trapped in an unhappy marriage, is seeing a psychiatrist, who is prescribing her drugs to cope. Bitsy is the young wife of a veterinarian and a part-time stable hand for an heiress, because working with horses brings her joy. Vivian is a former nurse who gave up her career to raise her family. She was recently told by her doctor that she needed her husband’s signed permission to take birth control pills. Together, as these four women read about how they can aspire to more than marriage and family, they become “The Bettys,” inspired by Betty Friedan.
This novel takes us straight to the 1960s, and I immediately became immersed in that era. The inner lives and thoughts of each character are well written and explored. All their circumstances are very different, but they all have aspirations outside of the home, and the cards are stacked against them simply because they are female. This story shows how four women begin to reach for their dreams, how four voices are much stronger than one, and how women helping each other really can tear down walls. Although they discuss their lives more than the book, the book is the inspiration for everything that follows. The characters are so easy to connect with, and the plight of women in the 1960s is so vividly described that it is easy to see why they were impacted by The Feminine Mystique, and why it was such a life-changing and controversial work at the time. Highly recommended.
