The Briar Club

I must say I am very pleasantly surprised. My expectations of this book were exceeded. I did not know who Kate Quinn was, I did not know what this book was about, and maybe I enjoyed it much more because of it. What I liked most about it was not really the historical aspect but being let into the privacy of women's lives and the struggles they go through living in a patriarchal society. In reading this book I was reminded of the Yesterday, Today & Forever Book Club, one of the so-called Women's Spaces that has endured over the years.
 There are some minor details that stood out to me, one or two references here and there, that seemed to me to appeal to contemporary sensibilities (not inherently natural to the Red Scare era in the United States), which unfairly reminded me of my own prejudices against certain kind of literature. Yet, overall, I was very happy and I was very pleased that I was recommended this book.
 Now, I do feel compelled to say something that perhaps could be thought of as a 'vegan alert' much à la Allison McCulloch on Letterboxd. This book is heavily loaded on references to meat-based foods. Maybe I have become too vegan, but reading through all those recipes with descriptions of animal parts, was at least somewhat uncomfortable for me to read. I was not expecting that. So just keep that in mind, in case you might be similarly sensitive to such topics.