The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton (a review)

The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton is a novel about the power of friendship and the importance of reaching for your dreams. Indirectly, it is also a tribute to the women’s movement and the changes that movement helped bring about in American society. Although in some respects I found Waite’s characterization a bit weak—I had a lot of trouble keeping the characters straight at the beginning and some of them never fully came into focus, particularly the husbands—at the same time, the five main characters seemed very real to me. Clayton successfully captures the tumultuous mood of the late 60s and early 70s, reminding us of how limited women’s options were not so long ago, without being heavy-handed. (The conversation the Wednesday Sisters have about whether or not they’d take their kids to a female pediatrician is sobering to say the least.) She also manages to address a host of fairly serious issues without seeming contrived. The book is not without faults: I did find the shifts from past to present and from first to third person jarring at times. However, ultimately, I cheered for these women, I cried for them and I admired them for pursuing their dreams.

Read other reviews on these blogs:
Bookish Ruth • Caribousmom • I’m Booking It • Jenny’s Books • Leafing Through Life • Library Queue • My Journey Through Reading • Sassy Monkey Reads • Stephanie’s Written Word

For author interviews, visit these blogs:
Booking Mama • Lesa's Book Critiques

(First posted on LibraryThing on June 2, 2008)