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It’s Raining Books: The Saturday Evening Girls Club by Jane Healey (Chrissy’s review)
The Saturday Evening Girls Club
written by Jane Healey
published by Lake Union Publishing, 2017
find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Book Depository, Goodreads
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Did I enjoy this book: I really did enjoy this book. It was a good, fast read.
I like reading this type of historical novel. It’s a more recent era, one that I would like to read more books about. It was fun reading about Caprice, Ada, Maria, and Thea. They were the best of friends and had very different struggles. It was a different time and culture in the early 1900s, but it was an interesting one. Watching these young women figure out their futures was amazing. They each had expectations placed upon them, but they each had a different idea of where they thought their lives should go.
I read the author’s note at the end and learned that this story is based on a real Saturday Evening Girls Club and the women in it. That fascinated me and made the story all the more real.
Would I recommend it: I would. If you like easy, historical reads, this is a good one.
About the book – from Goodreads: For four young immigrant women living in Boston’s North End in the early 1900s, escaping tradition doesn’t come easy. But at least they have one another and the Saturday Evening Girls Club, a social pottery-making group offering respite from their hectic home lives—and hope for a better future.
Ambitious Caprice dreams of opening her own hat shop, which clashes with the expectations of her Sicilian-born parents. Brilliant Ada secretly takes college classes despite the disapproval of her Russian Jewish father. Stunning Maria could marry anyone yet guards her heart to avoid the fate of her Italian Catholic mother, broken down by an alcoholic husband. And shy Thea is torn between asserting herself and embracing an antiquated Jewish tradition.
The friends face family clashes and romantic entanglements, career struggles and cultural prejudice. But through their unfailing bond, forged through their weekly gathering, they’ll draw strength—and the courage to transform their immigrant stories into the American lives of their dreams.
About the author: Jane Healey was inspired to write The Saturday Evening Girls Club after learning of the group’s history while researching an article on their namesake pottery, also known as Paul Revere Pottery. She became fascinated by the relatively unknown stories of these smart, sassy, enterprising young immigrant women living in Boston’s North End at the turn of the twentieth century.
In addition to being a fiction writer, Jane is a freelance journalist and consultant. Her publishing credits include the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, AOL/Huffington Post, the Street, Publishers Weekly, and New England Home.
Jane holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire and a master’s degree from Northeastern University. She shares a home north of Boston with her husband, two daughters, and two cats. When she’s not writing, she enjoys running, reading, and cooking.
