Interesting book about a time in history that I am not very familiar with. and it took me a while to get used to the time period. , but once she started getting into the characters in their lives it improved. Interesting premise and good character development.

I honestly didn’t think I was going to love this book as much as I did. I picked the book up not really knowing what to expect but it was wonderful. You follow four friends and the lives that they have built for themselves. It was moving, it was tough, and as a wife myself, certain parts were still a bit relatable.

NetGalley also gave me a chance to listen to the audiobook, so following along with the ebook made the experience more vibrant. I really liked the narrator, she did a good job of bringing each character more animated. The audio was clear and the narrator was easy to follow. I definitely enjoyed listening to it.

The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick is a heartwarming and empowering story set in the 1960s. It follows Margaret, a suburban housewife who seems to have it all but feels like something is missing.

This book is all about friendship, self-discovery, and pushing against society’s expectations. Bostwick does a fantastic job capturing the struggles and strength of women during that time. If you love stories about strong female bonds and personal growth, this one’s definitely worth a read!

This will definitely make the book club rounds. We've got four women (all with different color hair!) who are all married in the 1960's, who meet each other at a neighborhood mixer and decide to start a book club. The "Samantha" of the group suggests reading The Feminine Mystique and this starts some things off.

All of the women end up re-examining their lives to some extent and make decisions that they might not have made if they didn't have each other as support. One goes back to work for a while. One writes a column in a women's magazine and eventually tries to go beyond the tripe that she's expected to write. Two get divorces and careers.

Only one of these women has what I'd consider to be a good marriage, although one ends up being reparable in what feels like a frankly unrealistic realization that the husband comes to.

I think what I liked about the book is that it's one of those books where everyone gets their version of a happy ending. This is meant to gently challenge traditional (patriarchal) assumptions with everything carved out so black and white that there's no doubt what you're supposed to think as the reader. This is no Feminine Mystique, Women's Room, or any of the other literature name-checked in the book. It's training wheels consciousness raising. I suppose the sad thing is that this is probably all that a lot of its readers might be ready for. We haven't really come all that long a way from the 1960's in terms of misogyny, even thought I'd like to think differently.

But if what you want to read about is developing friendships and things all working out okay with maybe a little bit of a message, this will do just fine.

The Book Club for Troublesome Women is an enjoyable visit to 1950s America, where women stayed home to keep house and raise children while husbands brought home the bacon. When a group of women stumble across Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, they begin to question how much autonomy they actually had when making the choices that defined their lives.
Bostwick created a fun, likeable and relatable group of women to read, debate, and grow together. Each woman looks back on her life and the choices that shaped it, some opting to swap that life for what they hope will be a happier one. As a Women's Study minor in college who has read all the books mentioned in the novel, it was fun to revisit the classroom conversations and debates they sparked.
I enjoyed the book up until the end, where the author goes pulls it all together at a reunion where we learn what became of the book club "Bettys". The ending felt detached from the style of the rest of the book, and a bit rushed as well. Perhaps letting the reader imagine what became of each Betty may have been a more effectual choice. The ending knocked it from four stars to three.

What a great book! I absolutely loved how twisty and clever this one was! I was totally engrossed from beginning to end and would definitely read from this author again, So, so, so good!

I really enjoyed this book! It activated my feminine rage without a doubt. This is such an important read because we need to remember how much women before us have fought for us to be where we are today.

I fell in love with the characters and they were so relatable in so many ways. I think every woman will be able to identify one way or the other with one or several of these characters.

Marie is an incredible writer and I was completely enthralled from start to finish! This was such a wonderful read!

Thank you so much to NetGalley, HarperCollins Focus, Harper Muse and Marie Bostwick for giving me an ARC of this incredible book!

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this book earlier. Overall, this is a good read for historical fiction lovers. I found it the writing to be a bit dry at times, which I’m not sure was a stylistic choice to be representative of the time or just the author’s style.

Such a good book! I love that it followed different women who had very different lives. It was so nice to see this side of motherhood and see the side of women being more than mothers. It highlighted how women are so much more than just their wife/mom boxes. Found family trope!

Margaret Ryan, a housewife in the sixties forms a book club with a few women in the neighborhood. She goes outside her comfort zone and invites Charlotte a new neighbor relocated from the “big city” - Charlotte will come if she can pick the book. This is the begin of the Betty’s.

This story is a fantastic look into the life of a woman in the 1960s. The expectations society puts upon them and what women are expected too tolerate from the world around them. These women find friendship and support and challenge expectations pushed onto them. It was a great story and the characters are relatable- a great read!

What a sweet novel of four newfound friends who joined together to form a bookclub and nicknamed themselves “the Betties” after the author Betty Friedan who wrote The Feminine Mystique. This Nobel follows tremendous growth and empowerment of each Betty. Though set in the 60s a lot of these themes sadly ring true today. No matter the time or the obstacle, there is no limit to how much we can accomplish together as women ! Thank you NetGalley for the ARC copy of this delightful story!

This book was so special.
I love a good 60’s era story. This one shed light on how hard it was to be a woman during that time, and the expectations they dealt with on the day to day. These smart and capable women were told what they were best for was supporting their husbands from the home. Now, I am an old fashioned girl at heart, but watching these characters navigate the times was emotional and difficult.
The characters were layered and complicated and beautiful and the friendship they form over the book club is more beautiful still. Love this book. Will read more Bostwick for sure.

The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick is an engaging and thought-provoking read. Set in the 1960s, it follows four suburban housewives who form a book club and discover the transformative power of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. As the women grapple with their personal struggles and societal expectations, their bond and the book spark significant growth and change in their lives. I couldn’t put it down—Bostwick beautifully captures the complexities of women’s lives during a time of social upheaval, highlighting the value of literature and sisterhood. This novel offers a compelling glimpse into the challenges and triumphs of women seeking fulfillment beyond the roles they were expected to play.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins Focus for the free book in exchange for my honest review.

Its the 1960s and four suburban housewives from different walks of life form an unbreakable bond through their book club, forever altering the course of their lives.

I loved that the first book that the women read is the The Feminine Mystique which focuses on the core issue of these housewives and their dissatisfaction with domestic life. With the radical socio and economic changes headed their way, the reader gets a front row seat into the characters lives as they face motherhood, community and feminism. The Bettys are very likeable and relatable. This is a fast paced and entertaining read!

Highly recommend!

Rating: 3.5 Stars
Format: Audiobook/Ebook (ALC/ARC)
Genre: Historical fiction

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC and ALC for this book. All opinions are my own.

This book follows a group of women in the early 60s who are adjusting to post-war life and considering their place in the world. We see them wrestle with their desires and dreams in a culture that allowed them a bit of freedom when their labor was useful during the World Wars, but now that men have returned home, they were expected to go back to their subservient home-making roles.

Though the themes of this book and the core feminist ideas are nothing revolutionary for historical fiction, this book excels with its characterization and plotting. It does a couple things that I really loved. First, it shows a variety of womens’ wants and goals. There are women who want to be homemakers, women who want careers, and women who want a mix of both. The narrative and the characters didn’t demonize any of these choices that women might make. I also appreciated the array of men and the relationships that the women have with the men in their lives. Some of the husbands are giant pieces of garbage that I despised, but we also got representation of men who grow and change and strive to do better in how they treat their wives and families. The narrative doesn’t shy away from the harmful impacts of the patriarchy, but it also doesn’t demonize all the men in the story. They felt like real characters whose actions have been influenced by being raised in a patriarchal society.

The note at the end that provided context to what was fact vs. fiction was lovely to listen to and the audiobook overall was excellent. I enjoyed the narration and think it’s a great method to read the book.

The Book Club for Troublesome Women is an exploration of self-discovery, friendship, and the complexities of postwar American womanhood. Set in 1960s suburbia, the novel follows Margaret Ryan, a seemingly perfect housewife who, despite her picture-perfect life in Concordia, feels a gnawing emptiness of "wanting more". Everything changes when she meets Charlotte Gustafson, a free-spirited newcomer whose arrival sparks the creation of a book club that, unintentionally, becomes a lifeline for Margaret and her new friends - The Betty's!

The story is full of wit and laughter and love but it's also extremely deep and thought-provoking, as the women bond over their shared dissatisfaction with the roles society expects them to play. The reading of The Feminine Mystique at their bookclub becomes a catalyst for the women to confront the dissonance between the American Dream they’ve been sold and the reality of their inner lives. The friendships that form in this book club—Margaret, Charlotte, Bitsy, and Viv—are at the heart of the story, I adored the sisterhood between the Betty's so much.

What makes The Book Club for Troublesome Women particularly moving is its exploration of how women support each other, not just in good times, but in the moments of doubt and crisis that so often accompany personal growth. The women’s vulnerability, their laughter, and their messy, flawed selves make you ache for the kind of friendships that can weather any storm. At times reading this book honestly felt like a warm hug from my best friend.

I also dwelled a lot on the assertion that we are an impatient generation..we're always living for the next best thing, or i am anyway, dreaming of finding the one, moving in, getting engaged, then kids ~ always chasing happiness and fulfilment as if it's a tangible object when it's not, it's a choice, every waking day. "Pinnacle moments are exactly that, pulses of joy that usually don't last and are frequently accompanied by unforeseen complications". If you rely on these pinnacle moments to make you happy you'll spend your life chasing ghosts.

The Book Club for Troublesome Women is a beautiful tribute to the power of books to bring people together, it reminds you of the strength found in shared experiences, laughter, and above all, sisterhood.

I picked this book up, thinking that it would be something that would motivate a woman. But, guess what?, This is not only about women but about everyone who is struggling with identity crisis or just out there surviving!!

The story is about four women, who start a bookclub, start reading books and realize that they need to find themselves apart from being a wife and a mother. They recognise the need to notice themselves and to be happy.

📚 The story is set in 1963 and showcases that generation where women were considered to play the role of wife and mother only. They didn't even get enough opportunities to do what they wanted to do, so couldn't earn, had to focus on their children, their household and in turn were judged for asking for money.
📚 There are several political indicidents marked in the book, that roots the story back in that generation.
📚 The life of the women back then were tough and the story highlights things such as - Racism, husbands insulting their wives, husbands accepting that they hate their job, children, pregnancies, difficulty in conceiving, depression, sending children off to college, infidelity, fight of being something, marriage fights and struggle to be together, forgiving and the toughest of the times 'getting divorced'.
📚 The plot beautifully covers the story of all four women, giving enough justice to individual stories by connecting them to their past.
📚 The best part is the end, where the character's whereabouts are shown 30 years later. It completed the story in full circle.

I never knew that I would pickup something dated in past era but looks like this story was perfect!!

I wouldn't have lasted five minutes as a 1960s suburban American housewife, lemme tell you..

But oh was this book such a delight. Margaret, Viv, Bitsy, and Charlotte may live in a planned development with cookie-cutter similar houses, but they are all unique and passionate women with their own stories to tell and their own dreams they've been too afraid to share. When Charlotte suggests the first book for their new book club be "The Feminine Mystique", the four women begin to have those brutally honest conversations and become a tight-knit group affectionately called "The Bettys".

Their subsequent books take them through personal and professional ups and downs as they try to find their own version of happiness and fulfillment in a world that is rapidly changing yet still closing many doors in their faces. It made me exasperated and sad but ultimately so thankful for the generations of women before us that kept showing up and pulling other women up along with them. While it was a fictional book set decades before today, I think many modern women will relate to the same struggles and frustrations.

May become one of my most recommended books of 2025!

I adored this book. The friendships were so beautiful and the challenges that women faced in the 1960s were so well conveyed. A group of four unlikely friends start a book club, and so much more. They become intertwined in each other’s lives and important parts of the other's stories.

Thank you to Marie Bostwick, NetGalley, and Harper Muse for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed getting to know each of the ladies and watching their friendship grow throughout this book. Margaret meets Charlotte and invites her join a book club she is forming. Viv and Bitsy and the other members of the book group. Charlotte picks the first book to read which is The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. The book comes into play throughout the whole story. In fact, the group eventually calls themselves The Bettys. Each lady is married with very different lives and relationships that we learn about. The book is set in the 1960s so women's roles were much different. We go through their joys and heartbreaks with them as their lives grow and change. I felt like I was invested in each of their lives by the end of the story.

Very good read by Marie Bostwick. Pick up your copy in April 2025.