The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick
Publishing date - 04/22/25
Rating (4/5) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Harper Muse and NetGalley For this eARC. The Book Club for Troublesome Woman is a heartwarming story of female friendship set during the 1960s in a DC suburb. Loved the characters and the plot! If you enjoyed Lessons in Chemistry and have enjoyed any books by Kristin Hannah ; you will love this one. Highly recommend this one when it releases April 22nd.

This book struck a chord with me. The women who read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan started a revolution that opened doors for me and several generations of women in this country. In the book, four women decided to start a book club and they chose to read The Feminine Mystique. All of the women were educated and smart. All were limited by society, and maybe by their husbands and fathers, as to what they could expect of and for themselves. They were raised to run a household, take care of their husbands and children and not to have any aspirations for themselves. But they did want more. That book opened their eyes and told them that they could be more. I have always acknowledged and have been grateful for the women who were a generation before mine, as well as women who continue to fight for the rights of women.

These fictional women started knocking down doors for women like me. They were wives, some were mothers. Each had a reason to want and need changes in her life. There were some real-life women who made brief appearances in the book. Younger women might be surprised, even shocked at how low the opportunities were for women. And how women were expected to be financially supported by their husbands as well as being supportive. And the stress that often caused for the men. Did you know that married women needed their husband's signature to open a bank account for themselves. Or to get their husband's approval to get birth control? This book is great from an historical perspective, as well as being a great story. It brought tears to my eyes at the end. Well done, Marie Bostwick!

I had both the e-book and the audio book. The narrator is great.

Heart warming story of female friendship set during the 1960s in a DC suburb. Very likable characters that grew during the book. Showed what challenges the average woman faced during the time period. It was an emotional story.

“If women stuck up for one another the way men do, this would be a very different world.”This quote not only sums up the book perfectly but it rings just as true now as it did for our characters in the 1960s. I’m very partial to books that center reading or books in a plot so I was drawn to this book based on the title and description. But this book is so much more than a story about a book club. There are all the elements of female autonomy (a difficult task in the 1960s), pursuing true passions, friendship, and found family. The Book Club for Troublesome Women is engaging, witty, and thought-provoking. Marie Bostwick brings to life four strong female characters with Viv being my absolute favorite. I could have continued reading about these women for every decade following the 1960s, which is not a flippant comment as this book is 384 pages! It felt like their stories became the most entertaining right as the author chose to end them. If you love Kristin Hannah’s historical fiction, and especially her female characters, but want something a little lighter, this novel is for you. Thank you to Harper Muse and NetGalley for providing this book for an honest review!

I really enjoyed The Book Club for Troublesome Women! It’s a much-needed reminder of the struggles that women before us have faced and the ground they’ve broken to get us to where we are today. In a world where we sometimes take progress for granted, this book makes it clear that it is the result of countless battles fought by brave women.

The characters are truly what made this story so captivating. Each one felt deeply human and relatable, with unique strengths, flaws, and complexities. What I loved most was how these characters’ lives intersected in unexpected ways, creating a beautiful tapestry of different perspectives on womanhood. I found myself seeing parts of myself in several of them, whether in their frustrations, their triumphs, or their quiet acts of rebellion. I truly believe that every woman will find a piece of herself reflected in at least one of these characters.

What I found especially powerful is how the book addresses the importance of community and how women often navigate both personal and systemic challenges together. This collective strength is at the heart of the book, and it serves as a poignant reminder of how vital it is to support one another.

In conclusion, The Book Club for Troublesome Women is a brilliant exploration of women’s resilience, solidarity, and empowerment. It’s a book that doesn’t just entertain but also challenges us to reflect on how far we’ve come and how much further we still have to go. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a read that will stir your emotions, ignite your passions, and make you proud of the trailblazing women who paved the way.

In 1963, in a newly developed suburb of Washington, D.C., Margaret, Viv, Bitsy, and Charlotte form a book club and choose as their first book Betty Friedan's daring treatise "The Feminine Mystic". Only the glamorous Charlotte has read it from cover to cover and the other three have mixed feelings about what they've read. However, as they get to know one another better, they begin to understand Betty Friedan's arguments and awaken to the things they'd still like to do in life despite society's expectations.

Margaret married young and started a family, but has always aspired to be a writer. Viv was a nurse in WWII and although still deeply in love with her husband and six children, she misses the fulfillment she felt as a nurse. Bitsy is newly married to the much older veterinarian "King" who desperately wants children. Bitsy had wanted to go to veterinarian school herself, but was denied a recommendation from a close-minded professor. And Charlotte is in an unhappy marriage with the philandering Howard who works in her father's bank.

Together, these four women start to question whether marriage and motherhood is the only path to happiness and support each other as they reach out for new opportunities to explore their passions.

I thought Marie Bostwick did a fine job of developing the four main characters; they seemed like real people. And I liked that the husbands were all as different as the wives.

Being a boomer, I enjoyed all the product references of the time from frozen orange juice cans to Tang to Wind Song perfume!

I thought it was a nice touch to briefly add real-life personalities Katharine Graham and Jackie Kennedy to the story as well.

I think this would be a wonderful book club selection!

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Focus for an ARC ebook of this tremendous novel.

The Book Club for Troublesome Women, by Marie Bostwick, is a feel-good novel about a group of 4 women in a book club. Though they are individually different from each other, they form long-time friendships through their support of each other in daily life events.
I appreciate NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC ebook I read and reviewed. All opinions are my own.

A perfect story to be read in March as it introduces us to four American women in the 1960s who confront prejudices and sexist stereotypes that still exist. A book that I really enjoyed and that also deals with the power of reading in social struggles.

This was a fun read that covered many aspects of the beginnings of the women’s movement in the early 1960s. The members of a suburban women’s book club formed in 1963 to read Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique bonded as friends as they gained independence and self-awareness. I was inspired by the choices these women made, and somewhat saddened that it is all still so relevant.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

the writing was solid, and the story had potential—I just wish I had connected more with the characters. A decent read, but not particularly memorable.

A wonderful historical fiction focusing on the rise of feminism. The book club is a varied group of women, all with their own stories and difficulties, but I enjoyed reading about them all. Wonderful character building that puts you into the minds of this group of women and makes you really care about their struggles and triumphs.

I love a good feminist exploration novel, especially with all of the different characters and personalities that Bostwick writes. I thought it was very well done and now I'd like to be a Betty too. Stories for women, by women! Love it so much.

The Book Club for Troublesome Women isn't a groundbreaking new story, but it is the book that I needed right now. This one follows the Bettys, a group of women who decide to start a book club following WWII. The Bettys give us an interesting peek into this window of time, when men and women were renegotiating their roles in the household.

Throughout the story, we see these women manage their husbands--who range from rancid to actually decent--and balance their careers with their motherhood. One of the Bettys is a nurse who goes back to work, only to discover she's pregnant. Another is an aspiring veterinarian whose dropped out of school to become a mother, only to discover her husband has cheated on her and impregnated someone else.

This book brought these women to life, and gave a sort of "slice of life" feeling of seeing into this time period. I particularly enjoyed getting to see Margaret at the end of this book, having fought for the life she wanted.

I gave this book a four-star rating because I enjoyed it and would recommend it to a friend, but I wouldn't read it again.

I was not a fan of this book. There was so much exposition, which made the characters feel distant and flat. The premise was interesting and the author tried to tackle some serious issues, but it was so watered down and the stakes were very low that it felt like all their problems were magically solved in the end.

This book was heartwarming and entertaining. I liked the characters and the premise. Towards the end it felt a bit preachy and heavy-handed, but I still enjoyed the book overall. It was fun and informative to read about the feminist awakening of four suburban moms in the 1960's.

Traveling back to the 1960s when Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique was a popular book club read, four women—Margaret, Viv, Bitsy, and Charlotte—struggle with their place in the world in The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick coming out April 22.

Living in a planned community in Virginia, the women call themselves the Bettys in a salute to the author of Mystique. Bonded by their book club, the four each deal with various struggles: raising children mostly single-handedly, dealing with troubling times in their marriages, and dissatisfaction with their current life.

Though Margaret is devoted to her three children and her husband, she wants to do something more with her life. A writing contest catches her eye, causing her to wonder if she could brush up on her skills to become a successful writer.

Viv is proud of her “six “terrific, respectful, clean-cut, all-American kids,” loves her sexy husband, and really wants to get back to work as a nurse now that the kids are all in school. Frustrated with her doctor who will not prescribe birth control pills without her husband’s signature, she realizes her back-to-work plan is a fail as the smell of greasy pepperoni sends her to the bathroom…twice.

Bitsy is the youngest of the wives at 23. Having grown up with horses, Bitsy has always wanted to be a veterinarian but has been frustrated when none of her college professors would write her a recommendation for vet school because she is a woman. She marries a veterinarian and works as a stable hand where she gets to ride and care for horses.

Charlotte is new to the community of Concordia, quickly earning a reputation as an “oddball.” For some reason not yet known by the others, her husband has banished her from the New York she loves to suburban living in Virginia. Her marital problems seem most profound as her husband is rarely home and is known to have a wandering eye. She finds joy in her four children and her ambitious painting projects.

While they attribute their willingness to try new outlooks and actions to having read Friedan’s book, they also give credit to the bonds they have created as they deal with the past, cope with a changing world, and redefine themselves.

Marie Bostwick writes uplifting historical and contemporary fiction. Marie’s popular Cobbled Court Quilt series has been embraced by quilters and non-sewers alike. Her novel The Second Sister was made into the Hallmark Hall of Fame feature film “Christmas Everlasting.” If she is not reading a book, Marie most likely is in her office writing one. She lives with her husband in Washington state.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting April 2, 2025.

I would like to thank Harper Muse, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Marie Bostwick is an auto buy author for me. I loved her latest, The Book Club for Troublesome Women was awesome!

Book Review

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The Betty’s, I loved them. What a fabulous story about four women hell bent on finding their own way during a time when women had to ask permission. The Book Club of Troublesome women finds four women, The Betty’s, in a book club after reading The Feminine Mystique.

Margaret, Bitsy, Viv, and Charlotte… All looking for their own calling, in their own way. They come together and realize they can be exactly who they want to be and this story follows each of their paths as they journey to find themselves. Living a life with husbands who run the households, banks that require their husband’s signature , and places of employment that favor men.

Set in the 1960s, these women were on the cusp of finding something bigger and something better. And each of their stories is worthy of reading.

I could not put this down and I could not have loved it more. A top five read in 2025 for me.

For sure, I am a troublesome woman!

Thank you to @netgalley and @harpermusebooks for this advanced readers copy. Out on April 22nd, you want to miss this one!

#troublesomewomen #mustread

Four housewives come together to start a book club and it ends up changing their lives during the 1960's. This book shows how a simple book club can evolve into a movement of personal empowerment. Highly recommend reading! Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for a chance to read and review this book in exchange for an honest review.

DNF - I had high expectations for this book, but after starting it, my attention was not grabbed in the way I prefer. This is not necessarily a bad book, but I'm not interested in finishing it at this time.