During her weeks at home, Merritt thought a great deal about book club and Alice Campbell, whom she had already come to admire. It was a daring and exciting prospect to have a business of one’s own, especially a bookshop. It seemed an ideal place to work. Merritt daydreamed about it from time to time, having no idea what she would eventually do with her life. She loved painting and drawing and was in fact good at it, but her passion for art couldn’t possibly support her and it was time to think seriously about what she could do that might. The alternative was succumbing to the pressure to get married and start a family. Personally, she was somewhere on the spectrum between Evie and Tess: not boy crazy like the former, but not impervious to love like the latter. However, she was certain of one thing: she was not ready to settle down with one man and raise his children, certainly not before she was twenty years old.
Tess, Caroline, Evie, and Merritt quickly became a pretty tight-knit group when they arrived in their adjoining rooms at Radcliffe, but they soon discovered there may be more differences than similarities between them, except for their privilege in attending college as women.
Official synopsis:
The Cambridge Bookshop soon becomes a haven for Tess, Caroline, Evie, and Merritt, who are all navigating the struggles of being newly independent college women in a world that seems to want to keep them in the kitchen. But when a member of the group finds herself shattered, everything they know about themselves will be called into question.
When Tess enters Alice Campbell’s bookshop and grabs the flyer for her new fall book club, the new members don’t know how much Alice’s thought-provoking book choices will help the girls discover more about who they are and want to be. Whether the four new friends join to be a part of the group and belong, or to actually enjoy literature they may never have been exposed to at their childhood homes, there are always lessons to be learned from the books and from their relationships with the other girls and Alice.
Christmas break is what really precipitates the changes in the girls; either through going home and getting a reminder of where they’re from and who they were, or through the traumatic event for one of the girls that will soon affect them all. The book became an irresistible page-turner once everything started changing after their holiday break.
This story would be best enjoyed by those who enjoy reading about the evolution of women’s rights and experiences in the 1950s, as well as a classic story about a book store, which is always loved by so many readers. The book earned 3 out of 5 stars and would be a fun and distracting summer read as well.
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Becki Bayley enjoys quiet, new cocktails, time to relax, and accomplishing items on her to-do list. See some of her adventures on Instagram, where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.
GIVEAWAY:
One of my lucky readers will win a copy of The Radcliffe Ladies' Reading Club!
Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Wednesday, July 25th, at 11:59pm ET, and winner will be contacted the next day via email and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.
U.S. residents only, please.
Good luck!
The Radcliffe Ladies' Reading Club, by Julia Bryan Thomas
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