In her first novel since The Help, Kathryn Stockett immerses us in Depression-era Mississippi with a cast of strong female characters bucking convention and helping each other through difficult times.

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Birdie is a church-going, obedient “old maid” (at the ripe age of twenty-four) living with her Mama and Meemaw on their small town dairy farm. Meg is a big-hearted, opinionated eleven-year-old orphan living under terrible conditions in an orphanage in nearby Oxford, where Birdie’s sister Frances lives with her wealthy new husband. 

The action kicks off when Birdie heads to Oxford to ask Frances for money to save their family from foreclosure, but it takes a while (eight chapters!) to get her there. Stockett takes her time in the beginning of the book to immerse us in Birdie and Meg’s day-to-day lives. As a result, the setting and period really come to life, with vivid detail about clothing, cars, food and drink, prices, and even how they did everyday activities like placing phone calls, bathing, and cooking. She definitely did her research and it shows – you feel fully immersed in life in 1933 Mississippi, and in the truly awful conditions Meg is living under. 

Once in Oxford, Birdie begins volunteering with her sister at Meg’s orphanage and develops a soft spot for the girl. Meanwhile, it turns out that all is not as it seems with Frances’s husband – or their finances. Birdie, Frances, Frances’s mother-in-law, and a variety of other disparate women are forced to band together to save themselves from financial ruin and losing everything they care about. 

The women make some questionable choices out of sheer desperation, giving Stockett the opportunity to explore the difficulties women faced during this period, like unwed motherhood, forced sterilization, and limited employment opportunities. There are many strong, well developed female characters in this book. They approach their challenges in different ways, but friendship is what ultimately unites them. At its heart, this is a story about female friendship in all its forms.

My one quibble about this book is the length. At 600+ pages, it’s fairly slow-paced. The writing is vivid and emotionally rich, so I did feel drawn in and completely immersed in the story, but I do think it could have been shorter. Still, fans of vivid historical fiction and big-hearted stories about strong women and female friendship will enjoy this one, and it’s bound to be popular with book clubs.

Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for the ARC. All opinions are my own.