14th March, 2022
Review: The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick (Simon Schuster)
Sorry for my long absence. The current political climate had me knocked over backwards for a while but now I'm back and I missed you. :-) I haven't been able to read a whole lot in the past few weeks, but audiobooks worked alright, so today I have an audiobook recommendation for you. Of course, you can also read the regular, physical book. :)
If you like quirky contemporary stories and if you like Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, then The Mother-Daughter Book Club may be just the thing for you:
Even if Megan would rather be at the mall, Cassidy is late for hockey practice, Emma's already read every book in existence, and Jess is missing her mother too much to care, the new book club is scheduled to meet every month.
But what begins as a mom-imposed ritual of reading Little Women soon helps four unlikely friends navigate the drama of middle school. From stolen journals, to secret crushes, to a fashion-fiasco first dance, the girls are up to their Wellie boots in drama. They can't help but wonder: What would Jo March do?
For some reason, this story reminded me a lot of the Sistershood of the Traveling Pants book. Maybe it was because the characters were all so different, but a fact is that I really liked the dynamics between them. Of course, the ending is quite predictable but I found that the getting there was what made this book special. Each of the girls has special character traits that contribute to the group, once they actually realise that they are all valuable persons in their own ways.
I wasn't overly keen on the mums though. One of them was described in a very stereotypical way and I didn't really like the poking fun at her environmental concerns. As the parents in this book are always going on about being accepting and polite and are keen on teaching their daughters to become good people, this was one of the plot strands that seemed a bit unbelievable to me. All in all, I believe that the adults in this story are way more flawed than the kids: They are over-protective, or snobby, or have literally abandoned their family. And they judge each other, even though they claim that they are not.
All the typecasting aside, this was a cute read that touched on a number of serious topics but wasn't too gloomy. I breezed through it on Audible and particulaly enjoyed the connections and references to Little Women.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars