The Book Club for Troublesome Women

Author: Marie Botswick

Who Picked the Book: Stephanie

One-sentence summary: Four women from various backgrounds start a book club in their Stepford-style neighborhood outside of Washington DC in the 1960s, figuring out how to work within and also defy traditional gender roles of the time.

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 8

Our favorite thing about it: We loved the character development and how the ladies grew together in their relationships.

Our least favorite thing about it: We actually wanted more of the friendship development and felt that piece was lacking in the story. 

Main Topics of Discussion: Friendship, Transformation and Change, Mother/Daughter Relationships

Our favorite quote: “Examining thoughts and ideas that can impact your life is the whole point of reading.”

Notes: We all universally liked this story. It was compelling and fun to read. We liked each of the characters and were interested in their individual stories. We liked how the ladies grew closer together and ended up supporting each other in various ways. However, we did wish more time was spent detailing how those friendships grew - we felt that the author sort of jumped to the part where they were close without taking the reader along and showing how that happened. 

We discussed the interesting dynamic of Charlotte and Denise's mother/daughter relationship and what can happen when a daughter feels like she has to be a parent to her own mother. We loved that the old art dealer was brave enough to tell Charlotte the truth about her art - so that she could grow and use her talents in a way that would be fulfilling and productive to her. 

We thought that there were so many scenes/vignettes that were relatable to us - about kids, husbands, and jobs. We laughed and nodded our heads to many of these parts. 

Memorable Meeting Moments: We read this book for our annual lake house trip. 

What We Ate: Our traditional lake house menu, except we left the taco meat out on the counter overnight, so we had to get creative! We ate leftover charcuterie, snacks, and made cheese nachos in the oven with the cheese and chips we had planned to have with the tacos.