Book Blurb:
In 1933 Oxford, Mississippi, Prohibition is on the wane, and the Great Depression is tightening its grip. Poor and rich folks alike have fallen on hard times, even as the old social order remains. For women on the margins, the options are few and the price of dignity and self-determination is unbearably high. Eleven-year-old Meg, one of the unadoptable “big girls” at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed. Birdie, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford on a mission to ask her social-climbing sister to help the struggling family she’s left behind. And Charlie is a woman with a past, running low on luck but driven by fire, fury, and grit. When their fates converge, they come up with an audacious plan to take back control of their lives. Together, they form an unlikely sisterhood—but in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife, women’s freedom is fragile, and making an enemy can have dire consequences, will the price they pay for their outrageous risk-taking be too high?
My Review: 4.75 stars
The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett wrote a novel that you will highly enjoy if you like richly layered plots and exquisitely drawn characters. There were a handful I wanted to slap across the face, and others that I wanted to embrace with love!
This one takes place in depression era Mississippi and digs into the lives of Meg, Birdie and Charlie who have connected in the oddest of ways. Sometimes it’s the people you meet that can change your life forever. Each of them is struggling with their own demons yet together they are a force to be reckoned with.
There are some themes running through the book that really made me pause and reflect as I read/listened on. Orphanage neglect, poverty, racism, homophobia, child abandonment and eugenics were all part of the story. Don’t worry though, these women were strong advocates for themselves and pushed their way through to hope.
Some of their antics had me laughing out loud, and at other times I felt defeated for these characters. It was their ability to power through the obstacles with so much love and compassion for one another that kept me hooked to this book like white on rice.
I went into this book blind, knowing that if Stockett took this long to write her second novel after her incredible success with The Help, that I was in Stockett’s excellent hands. Book clubs will have loads to discuss and don’t be scared of the length of this one…I wanted more even after the almost seven-hundred pages.
Quotes I liked:
My entire life’s assignment is to ask questions. Why else are we even here?”
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all!”
“All I’m asking for is a decent view, some hard candies, and something to damn read. Is that too much to ask for in life?”
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