A story of female freedom and constraints that doesn’t shy away from the trauma—and joy—that faced U.S. women in the 1950s.
Four 18-year-old girls spend a year at Radcliffe College in the autumn of 1955, exploring books as they plan for their futures.
When Tess Collins arrives at Radcliffe for her first year of college on a scholarship, she is thrilled at the opportunity to make her own future and get away from her constantly arguing parents and fighting brothers in Ohio. She might not have much money, but she has plenty of plans about how she will be top of her class. Her roommate, Caroline Hanson, is her polar opposite: gorgeous, wealthy, fun-loving, and generous with her time and possessions. The pair become friends with the young women in the adjoining room: Evie Miller, a boy-crazy farmer’s daughter with a mostly steady boyfriend from back home in New York, and Merritt Weber, the artistically inclined daughter of an academic father in San Francisco whose mother died when she was 15. The story follows them as they join a book club run by Alice Campbell, a once-married woman from Chicago determined to find her own way in life by running a small bookstore in Cambridge. The women read a variety of books as Alice pushes them to think deeply about what it has meant to be a (White) woman across the centuries and how, while much might have changed when it came to (White) women’s rights, there was still much that hadn’t. Rather than being a book about nothing of importance—as Mark Twain said of Emma, a book from their book club—this is a book in which (after a slow start) the women experience joy and tragedy as they try to figure out who they are, what they stand for, and what their futures might hold. Themes of bullying, alcoholism, wealth disparity, (White) women’s rights, assault, and rape are all addressed.
A story of female freedom and constraints that doesn’t shy away from the trauma—and joy—that faced U.S. women in the 1950s.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781728248578
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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