Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

What a brilliant read! As someone born in the 1960s I was too young to remember any of this but this book brought back vivid memories of my childhood and the ideals and expectations of women that still existed when I was a child. I discussed some of the concepts discussed with my female colleagues and it was really interesting to hear about how the views of my generation have changed over the years, and how our younger colleagues are so much more confident in their expectations of life. Thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in the lives of real women during the sixties and the explosion of change that started then, and the impact of that change on women today. Absolutely brilliant read!

I love social history and anything with a feminist perspective, but I'll admit that I knew very little about the 1960s before reading this book. I think I'd bought into the vague modern notion of the 'Swinging Sixties', a time when societal expectations changed after the restrictive 1950s, a time of permissiveness and free love and hippies and Biba. The sixties as revolutionary but in a good way.

Nicholson goes some way to explode this myth about the decade often recalled with a sense of nostalgia by those who experienced it (my dad being a prime example!) She reveals the truth behind the 'free love' headline: this was not a great time for women. From illegal abortions to sexism at all levels of society, the 1960s were not always kind to the sisterhood. While seeming to be an age of opportunity and freedom (the pill, the opening of the job market to women, recreational drugs, the possibility of finding your 'tribe' of mods/rockers/hippies, and an exciting shift in popular music), the reality was that gender equality was not part of the deal.

Despite this overall message, the book is not pessimistic or depressing. Nicholson cleverly charts the decade chronologically, interspersing an account of the historical events with interviews with a range of women who lived through the 1960s. These range from the mother of a thalidomide baby to a campaigning feminist to a women who experienced teen pregnancy to Patricia Quinn (Magenta in 'The Rocky Horror Show' and a personal heroine of mine!) These women show that the sixties were an era of contradictions and complexities, of great change, of fun but also huge challenges.

The scope of the book is mind-boggling.
It manages to cover personal stories from the interviewees and also the big news events of the day. In a fast paced narrative, we are whisked through huge cultural revolutions and major news stories: Beatlemania, Profumo, Playboy bunny girls, LSD, groupies, Mary Whitehouse, racism, Lady Chatterley, the moon landings, Carnaby Street, feminism...the list goes on. There is so much packed into the book, yet the flow of the text never seems forced or unnatural; it is an absolutely engrossing read.

I recommend this to anyone interested in social history, feminism or women's lives. Whether you remember the sixties or not, there is so much to learn from this engaging and thought provoking book.

This is a fascinating social history of the Sixties as told through the eyes of women who lived through it. Nicholson makes the point in her introduction that most seminal books on the Sixties are written by men, and although they talk about issues that affected women, like the availability of the pill, and the increase in freedom women experienced, they don't always give evidence of how it directly affected women. Nicholson interviews a number of women from various social, economic and geographic backgrounds about their experiences in an attempt to give a less London centric view of the decade. It's incredibly readable and certainly, given what is happening to women in 2019, a timely reminder of where we came from, and hopefully an inspiration for where we are going to.

Having no just read Invisible Women I found this a great companion piece, setting out what life was like for women in the swinging sixties.

I liked how much first hand material there was from 'normal' people but inevitably the more salacious stories came from famous or infamous women.
Towards the end I felt the book was a little rushed, but I guess that as the times were a changing so fast this was inevitable.
Being the child of parents who came of age in the 1960s I feel that my family history has more in common with all of the stories from people who knew of the wild 60s but weren't a part of them, but I did enjoy this book for the most part.

A vivid, often heartfelt, recount of the sexual and women’s revolution of the 60s. This is about every woman. The ‘hippie’, the industrial campaigner, the groupie. It’s such an eclectic, yet perfect blend of every kind of woman that existed in the 1960s, as well as exploring what they are today.

I thought this was a great book, which recounts social history in an extremely accessible, down to earth and enjoyable way. Every woman can find her counterpart here, and perhaps be inspired by these women who are now probably best known as our grandmothers. To grow up in a time which is described as the ‘swinging sixties’, yet still continue to fight for women’s rights and face such enormous struggles, discrimination and violence seems hard to comprehend now. They were the forerunners of feminism, the leaders in the fight for equality, and we owe them so much.

Liberty didn’t stop with Emmeline Pankhurst and Millicent Fawcett, and the overriding message that I took from this is that we can only gain equality by fighting every day for it. Never be complacent, and never accept second best just because of your gender. To read the many impassioned words of these women was truly something to aspire to, and we owe it to the next generation - as they have done for us.

Entertaining, uplifting, funny, relatable, colourful, I could go on. This really creates a vivid portrait of the 60s for women and how things were affecting them and how they affected the world. An inspiring read

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion