Review: The Wednesday Sisters

The Wednesday Sisters – Meg Waite Clayton

From the book jacket –

In the late 1960s, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally find themselves meeting every Wednesday at a park in Palo Alto, California.  Defined at first mainly by what their husbands do, the young homemakers and mothers are far removed from the Summer of Love.  These “Wednesday Sisters” otherwise seem to have little in common: Frankie is a timid transplant from Chicago, brutally blunt Linda is a remarkable athlete, Kath is a Kentucky debutante, quiet Ally has a secret, and quirky, ultra-intelligent Brett wears little white gloves with her miniskirts.  But the women are bonded by a shared love of literature – Fitzgerald, Eliot, Austen, du Maurier, Plath, and Dickens – and the Miss America Pageant, which they watch together every year.

As the years roll on and their children grow, the quintet forms a writers’ circle to express their hopes and dreams through poems, stories, and eventually, books.  Along the way, they experience history in the making – Vietnam, the race to put a man on the moon, and a women’s movement that changes everything they have ever thought about themselves – while at the same time supporting one another through changes in their personal lives brought on by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success.

Humorous and moving, The Wednesday Sisters is a literary feast for book lovers and a celebration of the mysterious, unbreakable bonds among friends.

Ok, so this is going to be a pretty short review, because quite simply, I LOVED this book.  I was hooked on the characters and the story from page 1 and read it in two sittings.  This is a fabulous story for women, for friends, for anyone that’s been through some of the historical events that The Wednesday Sisters covers… so, it’s a good book for a heck of a lot of people.  It is such a great story about womens’ friendships, about how they are so crucial to our lives, how sometimes your girlfriends are the only people truly there for you.  I can relate to this book, even though I did not grow up in the 60’s and 70’s (and let’s face it, I wasn’t around for much of the 80’s even), because it is mostly a book about a group of friends who care about each other and who support one another through all kinds of real-life awful situations.  And if it sounds cliche and dramatic, it’s not, trust me.  It’s just a really good book.

My only complaint?  The book was too short!  I could have read a few hundred more pages about these women, I liked them that much.

Read these reviews, too! (and judging by the amount of reviews I found, it appears that I am the last person ON EARTH to have read this book… so just in case you haven’t, you should!)

• Sassymonkey Reads
• Bethany at B&b ex libris
• Nicole at Book Escape
• Kim at I Smell Books
• Tricia at Library Queue
• Ruth at Bookish Ruth
• Stephanie at Stephanie’s Written Word
• Avisannschild at She Reads and Reads
• Michele at Michele only one L
• Jill at Breaking the Spine
• Julie at Booking Mama
• Wendy at Caribousmom
• Lesley at Novels Now
• Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?
• Petunia at Educating Petunia