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    The Wednesday Sisters
    The Wednesday Sisters
    The Wednesday Sisters
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Wednesday Sisters

    Written by Meg Waite Clayton

    Narrated by Julie Dretzin

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Meg Waite Clayton, St. Martin's Fresh Fiction Pick author and Bellwether Prize Finalist, delights millions with her endearing stories and authentic characters. In this compelling tale of humor and poignancy, five young California homemakers forge a bond of friendship that sustains them through the turbulent 1960s and beyond. Meeting weekly, the Wednesday Sisters share a love of writing, literary classics, and the Miss America Pageant-in a moving testament to the mysterious link between friends.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJun 20, 2008
    ISBN9781436151344
    The Wednesday Sisters
    Author

    Meg Waite Clayton

    Meg Waite Clayton is the New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including The Postmistress of Paris (a Publisher’s Weekly notable book; HarperCollins, Nov. 30, 2021), the National Jewish Book Award finalist and international bestseller The Last Train to London, the Langum Award honoree The Race for Paris, the Bellwether Prize finalist The Language of Light, and The Wednesday Sisters, an Entertainment Weekly 25 Essential Best Friend Novels of all time. Her novels have been published in 23 languages. She has also written more than 100 essays, opinions, and reviews for major newspapers, magazines, and public radio. She mentors in the OpEd Project, and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the California bar. megwaiteclayton.com

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    Reviews for The Wednesday Sisters

    4/5

    121 ratings116 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Wow - did this book bring back my own personal memories of growing up in the San Francisco Bay area in the 60's and 70's. I thought it extremely well researched and very believable. It's amazing how much things have changed for women since then. We take for granted so much that we were not allowed back then. My 19 year old daughter cringes when I tell her girls were not allowed to wear pants to school until I was in 7th grade - whatever year that was!I loved the characters - every single one of them. All were well rounded, all had issues that were explained by the author, all were intelligent, and all grew throughout the novel. (My one pet peeve was Kath NOT DIVORCING HER LOUSE OF A HUSBAND, good God woman! Show us that back talk backbone you show to everyone else;) And she was right to think that she was not showing her children a good example of how a healthy family is supposed to function. I really wish she had acted on that. Other than that minor comment I absolutely adored this novel and will be recommending it to all my women friends. Yeah Meg - great job!
    • 4/5
      At first they were just mothers who happened to meet in the park where they took their children to play. But after bonding over--of all things--the Miss America Pageant they end up forming a writing group together. Through the years of momentous world events like the moon landing, and momentous personal events like births and divorces, they continue to write, forming a sisterhood and also a means to personal and professional success. This feel good novel about the bonds of womanly friendship is memorable for the scenes the author creates. From a funeral parlor to the set of the Johnny Carson show she puts these ladies in some pretty unforgettable situations. I definitely recommend it to fans of books about the experience of being a woman and the power of friendships in our lives. 
    • 5/5
      Baby boomers should appreciate this view at the lives of stay at home wives of the 60s experiencing the awakening of feminism while being unwilling to throw off the expectations of motherhood. It could be your mother! A group of dissimilar women become acquaintances around the neighborhood tot lot and form a reluctant writing club. They each learn that they are more than just wives and mothers through their friendship and writing. They don't share the kind of BFF bonds of closeknit childhood friends growing up together, but the uncomfortable comraderie of adults who find themselves in similiar circumstances with different backgrounds. They overcome stereotype nad misconceptions and recognize the inner strengths and weaknesses of each other as they share intimacies in their writing. As their writing grows stronger so too do each of the women.
    • 4/5
      I thought the author told a compelling story of women striving to find fulfillment without belittling what they already had in their lives. Motherhood was what drew them together. But slowly as they open up to one another they each find that motherhood alone is not enough and it's ok to want more. While it's a fictional story, in many ways it is my mother's generation's story; women moving beyond the prescribed bounds of women's roles. It's also a funny, sometimes sad, story of the ups and downs of friendship and how sometimes those relationships can help you do more than you ever thought you could. Truth be told, parts were maybe a little too contrived but overall I thought it was a believable story.
    • 4/5
      I very much liked this story of a group of women who gather together as a group every week to support one another in both their efforts as writers, and their daily lives as wives and mothers. It covers a period of time in the late sixties and early seventies, which is when I was in high school, so all of the cultural and historical references resonated with me.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book and will definitely recommend it to others. I could identify with each of the Wednesday Sisters for different reasons, and found myself chuckling with the funny happenings and my heart welling up when the times got hard. I don't enjoy a book that I can tell is just trying to yank me around by my emotions. The author of a book like that isn't being honest. I have read my share of formula books by writers who have a contract to complete a certain number and they are simply trying to play their readers and get them the way they did the first time they had a hit. That isn't what Meg Waite Clayton is doing here. This book feels true. You can read it in the research she has done. You can read it in the relationships that work and the sentences that fall out of women's mouths and onto the page which haven't been too carefully scripted. The statements that hurt a friend because someone is speaking before they think in the passion of the moment. And the 70's were a passionate time. There were a lot of changes happening. I'm grateful for the reminders of those changes. Now that I've sailed my way through this book in a couple of days, I know that I'll go back and read it again. Because I found little jewels mixed in that are inspirational for writers. And I also love a book that talks about books! I don't belong to any book clubs (aside from this huge book club online that is LT!) but I get a kick out of reading about groups that form makeshift book clubs and how they do what they do. So yes, I loved reading this book and will not only recommend it to others, but will also read it again myself.
    • 2/5
      At last, a book I could really get into. A story of friendship among a group of women. They all have secret sufferings, and like all of us, don't always share them easily. And it captures that friendships aren't always easy, that we have envy at times. One of the better early review books I have received.
    • 4/5
      I received this book as an early reviewer right before leaving for vacation--perfect timing! It struck me as a good beach read, so that's exactly where I read it. At first I couldn't decide if the book would be a mindless "chick lit" read or something more substantial. (I'm not above the former, but much more appreciative of the latter.) By the end, I found it to be a cross between the two. The obligatory summary: The Wednesday Sisters is the story of five friends who meet when they are stay-at-home mothers convening at the neighborhood park and form a close friendship--and, eventually, a writing group. As the years go by, they support one another through life's ups and downs, confronting issues of ambition, motherhood, marriage, health, war and a changing American society.While the plot was a bit predictable and seemed rushed or glossed over at times, I did find myself liking the characters (though some were better drawn than others), and I was particularly drawn in by the setting of the book. The historical context of the 1960s and '70s women's rights movement was almost a character, a sixth Wednesday Sister, in its own right (in much the way that the city of New York often seemed to be a fifth main character in Sex and the City). As I was reading, the Democratic presidential primaries were coming to a close, and the fact that a woman received 18 million votes to be a presidential candidate stood in stark contrast to the experiences portrayed in the book and reminded me (political opinions aside) how far women have come (despite how far we still have to go in some respects). This endeared the book--and to its author--to me more than any other singular aspect of the story.I also found the main character, Frankie, to have contagious enthusiasm for the craft of writing. This book made me want to write and, I admit it, even unearthed some old dreams of mine--which is a compliment to any author. I would certainly recommend The Wednesday Sisters for summer reading: enjoyable but not too serious.
    • 4/5
      This novel brought me right into The Wednesday Sister world I felt through the entire book that I was sitting there with them on there park bench talking and listening with them. Meg Clayton brought these characters to life right off the pages you were reading. From the first page to the last it was a book I was unable to put down until I knew the entire story had been told. This story is about five woman all with different trials and tribulations in there life coming together and becoming friends caring each other through there more difficult points in there life knowing that The Wednesday Sister were there for them even without one of them particularly wanting it or thinking they needed it they always seemed to have a way to come together and rise above there challenges.I can't wait to recommend this book to women that I know I have feeling that they will get the same feelings I received while reading this novel.
    • 4/5
      Meg Waite Clayton gives us a look into the lives of five very different women who share their lives and their literary ambitions while they meet once a week in the park. On the surface, Linda, Frankie, Brett, Kath, and Ally have little in common. But when they decide to meet and share their attempts at writing, they begin to develop a strong bond. At first, they are afraid to say what they really think - everyone's work is "nice". As they are able to start being honest with each other, about their writing and their lives, they are each changed by the friendships that they forge. Clayton is able to give each character her own voice, even though the book is narrated by Frankie. I felt like I knew each of the women by the time the book came to an end, and cared for them all. By setting the book in the late 60's she was able to tackle issues such as the burgeoning feminist movement, racism and the Vietnam war, and give insight from a perspective that would be much like that of my own family members. Clayton's writing style was warm and engaging, and I found myself quickly drawn into the lives of these 5 women. I hope to read more by this author in the future!
    • 4/5
      This is the story of five women (Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally) who met in the late 1960s in a Palo Alto, California park. They found that they were discussing literature and that several of them were interested in writing so they formed a "writer's group." They developed the type of friendship with one another where very personal matters could sometimes be shared. Most of the book is set in the late 1960s and early 1970s as women's rights were really emerging. I wish that I could say that I loved this book in every way, but there were a few things that bothered me about it. Probably the thing that bothered me most is that there seemed to be a general antagonism toward Christianity. While it's not the central theme of the book, the few mentions of the church seem to all be in a negative light and as a Christian that bothers me a lot. The characters are well-developed, but there are parts of the book that flow better than other parts. It, however, is a well-written book and in spite of its weaknesses, it deserves a better than average rating.
    • 3/5
      First of all, I must say that I loved reading The Wednesday Sisters for it's time period. I am always sensitive to details rooting a story in time and place.For the young (anyone under fifty, say) this novel, despite a few flaws, is worth reading if only to illustrate how much this country has changed in the years since.The political climate in the country today could have caused the author to depict her characters in more revisionist terms. The atttempt has been made, at least, to show how many woman were thinking and feeling at the time about their work, their marriages, their relationships, and themselves.Kudos for that.
    • 4/5
      It is a rare thing to read chick lit with an explicitly feminist message, but that's precisely what one gets from Meg Waite Clayton's The Wednesday Sisters. The novel tells the story of five women, all young wives and mothers, who become friends in suburban San Francisco in the late-1960s. All five have aspirations and dreams, which for many of them focus on writing. Thus, the five friends form a writers' group, and the novel tells the story of their efforts to support one another in meeting their goals within the confines of late-1960s expectations of young women. In this Clayton has created a good and engaging story, one with developed characters and which easily retains the reader's interest and sympathy. One of the larger goals of this novel is clearly to explore women's lives in a time of tremendous change and upheval. The five women are clearly placed in time-- they watch the moon landing, and they attend an anti-war rally. Where the book was most interesting for me was in its treatment of second wave feminism, looking at how the growing movement shaped the lives of these five women. The book opens in 1967, before the myriad transformative events that will shake the world in 1968. What strikes the reader, and where Clayton does an especially good job, is in showing how white, suburban America in 1967 looked far more like the 1950s than what most of us associate with the 1960s (tie-dye, drugs, bra burning, and the like). But the changes do begin to happen, and the Wednesday sisters do not remain untouched. The book makes clear that the pace of the changes with which we credit the 1960s was sometimes slow, and that for many people, ideas had to change before the realities of their daily lives did. Most importantly, this books highlights some of the limits of feminism (and the other radical changes of the late-1960s). My one sifnificant criticism is that I didn't care for the way in which the story was told in retrospect with Frankie, the narrator, offering 21st century commentary on things she thought and did in the 1960s, offering side notes like "Of course we thought differently then." Just letting the characters be and exist in the 1960s would give them more complexity, and also highlight the limits of change. These women have their flaws. They have racist ideas. They have strong ideas about how families should be structured and the duties of husbands and wives. I'd prefer to just watch these things exist, unfold, and see how they changed, rather than getting presentist commentary. Overall, though, I enjoyed this book. It's a great summer read, particularly for the daughters of these 1960s women who are now young mothers, wives, writers, and businesswomen.
    • 3/5
      My first Early Reviewers book! I was completely excited about having been awarded an Early Reviewers book on my first try and awaited its arrival with great anticipation. Given this, I was really rooting for The Wednesday Sisters and had high hopes for it to become a five star, must read edition to my library. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations in that regard. I am perhaps more disappointed than usual given that this novel has all the ingredients (for me) of a great book—enduring female friendships, literary discussions, and writing interests and aspirations. While the novel intentionally tries to strike a nostalgic tone, the author’s attempts to capture and report on a myriad of thoughts, feelings, and details of its five main characters and their lives results in a story that is stuck in the past. Were it an actual memoir, I think this approach would be better tolerated. For example, there are countless times the story gets close to compelling, but for some reason, the author inevitably abandons the present and shifts to past tense to recount the actions and accounts of the characters. As a reader, I find this to be both disruptive to the story and very frustrating. Also to my dismay, the story holds no real surprises. The author’s ‘hints’ and foreshadow attempts are not well crafted and this results in a very predictable read.Style criticisms aside, I did care about the characters, enjoyed hearing about their journey and read until the end. This book is a pleasant light read that is most likely to appeal to women readers/writers aged 40 and up.
    • 5/5
      This is a book of finely drawn and distinct characters. I think it must be easy when writing a book about 5 women to have them all be similar in some ways, but the Wednesday Sisters (as they call themselves) each have their own identity. Each has their own struggles and fears and joys. Through Clayton's vivid writing, we get to share all of these as each character shares them with the group and gains strength from the sharing.An excellent book of the power of women's friendships, this is also a story of how these women, young mothers at the end of the 1960s, each react differently to the women's liberation movement and other cultural upheavals of that time.The story is told through the eyes of one of the women, looking back from 35 years later. Her tone is nostalgic for that era (in a very progressive way), but at the same time there is repeated foreshadowing of events to come, both in the lives of the Wednesday Sisters and in the world around them. Aside from this slightly troubling dichotomy of tone, this is an enjoyable book.
    • 3/5
      First of all, this was such a great book idea that I couldn't wait to begin reading. This was a selection in my book club, and I'd recommend it to all women's book clubs. It's a great book for discussion, and I have to give it credit. However, as an enjoyable read, I found it lacking. The characters are a bit stereotyped, and although I love the time period, it didn't truly come alive for me. I think everything just fell a little flat for me--setting, characters, plot, etc. Some of the ideas were a bit hard to believe (white gloves all the time?), and the author definitely takes on a "preachy" tone on several occasions. This is an example of girl power to the extreme, and although I'm a modern working woman, I felt this was too much at times. I did love how the characters interacted with each other, and how each woman had her own story. It was nice to see the contrast between how the characters behaved wtih each other and how they were at home with their husbands/families. Don't expect it to be a page-turner. It wasn't for me, but it was enjoyable enough. It's a very light read. I'd recommend it for a weekend at the beach or on a rainy day.
    • 4/5
      Part sisterhood, part Forrest Gump, this book is the story of five women who form a bond in the summer of 1968. Frankie, new in Palo Alto, takes her children to the park and meets Linda, Alley, Kath and Brett. They bond over their love of books and desire to write. And as their friendship progresses we see the times they are living through the women’s lib movement, the first lunar landing, and protests over the Vietnam War. For those of us who actually were young adults in 1968 it’s a trip down memory lane as books such as The Godfather and movies like Love Story are mentioned.
    • 3/5
      It was difficult for me to get into this book. For about the first 100 pages I struggled with the desire to put it aside and move on to something else. Eventually, it did grab my interest and I started to look forward to seeing what the outcome would be for each of the Wednesday Sisters. Weaving elements of the women's movement during this time period into the story was eye opening and made me stop and think several times during the course of reading the book. Overall, I liked the story but found the writing to be lacking. For such a simple plot, I had to stop several times and re-read a few sentences to figure out what the author was saying. Maybe it's just me. It would make for a good beach read.
    • 4/5
      This book surprised me. When I first began reading, it seemed that it was going to be a somewhat shallow, predictable, and rather unlikely tale with lots of fluff. Not so. This book turned out to be a heartwarming, very readable story of five women who grew together to become a tightly knit group, bound by their love of writing. At first, as the women found and came to know each other, sitting around a picnic table in the local park, while watching their kids play, they tentatively shared bits and pieces of their lives with one another. As time passed, they discovered that they each had a story to tell, and began to write.Set in the turbulent mid-1960's, there were changing ideas about womanhood, and woman's place in the world. The Wednesday Sisters (as they called themselves because in the beginning they met every Wednesday morning in the park) were going through changes of their own. Kath was learning that her marriage was teetering on the brink of collapse though she never could admit it to herself. Linda was walking a tightrope of fear regarding a possible inherited propensity of breast cancer, which disfigured and ultimately killed her mother. Ally, the only one of the group without children, was mourning several heartbreaking miscarriages and still yearning for a child of her own. Brett carried very private secrets beneath her mysterious white gloves that she was never seen without, and that no one had the courage to ask her about. Finally, Frankie, the protagonist of the story, who found herself in a metamorphosis of her own, just trying to find her way in the world, trying to find herself.As the group grew more and more serious about their writing, they all continued to critique each other's work each week in the park, and in doing so, learned more about each other. When several in the group had individual crises in their lives, the others would come to help and give comfort....as best friends do.Each year they would gather around the television set and watch Bert Parks host the Miss America pageant, and each year they found themselves with a changing system of values regarding the roles of women and also a changing view of the pageant itself.There were many highs and lows in the story, and I found myself turning pages and wanting to see what would become of these five women of the 1960's-70's. It was a nicely written novel with a good flow, keeping my interest throughout, and each character, along with their family members, were believable and easy to picture. I enjoyed this one very much and would recommend it to others.
    • 5/5
      This book was warm and witty and I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. I laughed, cried, got angry, felt relief and also cheered on the "sisters" that Meg Waite Clayton brought together in this book.In 1968 five women from different walks of life, religion and circumstance find each other. They become joined first by the bond of womanhood and motherhood and later through ties formed by the words they each put to paper and share. Through their meetings they learn about each other and begin to share the highs and lows of everyday life and the women's movement as a sisterhood.
    • 5/5
      What happens when mothers go to a park with their children? They find other women like themselves who enjoy discussing books that they've read. These 5 women also discovered that they would all like to write and be published. So, that's what they did. They set up a time on Wednesdays when they would meet at the park and critique each other's work. Some did get published & others went to work at a publishing company.It is also historical fiction in the fact that the story started in the 1960's and went into the 1970's. These women did not work outside the home but felt the need to write, to do something with their lives other than being a mother.The 'sisters' also became best friends supporting each through pregnancy issues, becoming single mothers, cancerand husband & wives going their seperate ways yet coming back together again. Very much like reality at its best.
    • 4/5
      Race, sickness, marital dissatisfaction, gender roles, education, insecurity, war, infidelity combined with friendship, love, dreams, parenting, literature - this book has it all! At the center of the changing world of the 1960's are five friends brought together by their weekly visits to the local park. They each come with a history and with a past; they each have certain things about themselves they preferred would stay hidden from the eyes of the others. The five friends united behind one goal, one driving force: their dream of writing which stems from their love for literature. It is through this shared dream that they are able to grow closer to one another and call themselves the Wednesday Sisters. This book was vivid, emotionally gripping, and poignant. It made me want to laugh, cry, and stand alongside the five women cheering them on. It took me on an emotional rollercoaster, but it was one that I was always willing to climb aboard! The sisterhood they formed is one that I believe most women crave at their core. Overall, it made me look within myself and ask, "Am I doing enough to make my dreams a reality? Will people remember me for being related to so-and-so or being this person's friend, or will they remember the impact I made on the world?"
    • 5/5
      Very Good Read! I seem to like this genre.
    • 5/5
      The Wednesday Sisters surprises in its honesty. Its characters remind us of our faults, our frailty and our fortitude, both as individuals and as a culture. It is, in part, a story of friendship: of the way in which friendship deepens the humanity of those it touches. Yet it also is the story of awakening: of the awareness that we humans wear blinders; of the removal of those blinders; and of the conscious decision whether to replace the blinders or not. I found myself deeply moved by The Wednesday Sisters. It seemed to sneak up and unravel my emotions before I realized what was happening. The Wednesday Sisters made me laugh and cry, almost simultaneously. And when I turned the last page, I knew I was going to miss my friends, the Wednesday sisters: Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett and Ally.
    • 3/5
      I did enjoy this book. I had been wanting something that was a lighter read but didn't make me feel like I losing intelligence by reading it. It was a bit hard to know the characters until about the middle of the book (especially the narrator). The narrator explained herself more than she would have had she been a real person.I had just been to San Francisco before I started reading it and I was hoping for more setting details, but I know that the author was trying to show a housewife's point of view from that period. I also felt that from the book's blurb that the book would have gone from the sixties to present day. Time did pass really quickly, but I didn't really want it to. Clayton is a good writer and I enjoyed getting lost in what she wrote. I feel that it could have been written in more detail and had a longer story. At times, I felt that she was rushing and only focusing on the big parts of the story. I was more interested in the Sisters' day to day activities.So, specifically, it was a great read, but for me to call it a great book, I would need more details and more descriptions of the setting. The women didn't feel real because I didn't see them do the "real" things that everyone does from day to day.
    • 4/5
      What do you get when you combine five women, a shared love of reading and a park picnic table? The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton, of course.In the late 1960’s five very different women meet as their children play in a Palo Alto park. United by their love of books and a shared passion for the Miss America Pageant, the five women – Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett and Ally – become friends. Eventually their love of books leads to the creation of a writing circle. The characters grow as women and as friends through their writing, and that growth is a fascinating process to watch.We meet these remarkable women at a crucial point in American history. The Vietnam War is dividing the nation and the Summer of Love is at its peak. The first meeting of the Wednesday Sisters takes place the day after Robert F. Kennedy is shot, and the women find themselves drawn to the park; each one looking for comfort and normalcy on that dark day. As their friendships blossom, they watch in awe as Neil Armstrong walks on the moon and re-evaluate their roles as wives and mothers in light of the Women’s Liberation Movement. All the while, they continue to write and encourage each other to pursue their dreams.Meg Waite Clayton did an excellent job in creating vivid, interesting characters and showing how their lives changed as a result of their friendships and the turbulent times in which they lived. This is a fun, easy read, but there’s also a lot of meat to the story. It’s sure to be a popular choice for book clubs. I wouldn’t be surprised to see The Wednesday Sisters on the silver screen at some point. This inspirational story of the power of friendship has a wide appeal.
    • 4/5
      This is the story of a group of women who meet in a park in Paolo Alto California in the sixties, become friends, and start writng stories. The special thing about this book is the time period it is set in. Important world events are included in the story and the atitudes values and prejudices of the sixties are an important feature. One of the women has a husband from India and we see the reaction of the group and the coommunity to that. The book deals with issues that women of all time periods face such as breast cancer, miscarriages, and unfaithful husbands but everything is seen through a sixties eye glass. Throughout the book we are a party to their struggles to get their work published. This is a time period I have lived through, be it at a younger age than them, but I can remember the things the writer is talking about. I came to identify with these friends and their struggles, and to like them as people. The friends have their ups and downs and their crises but they do stick together and without giving anything away I really did like the end of the story. A book well worth a read.
    • 4/5
      This books seems like it is a tale of female friendship and it is. But, it is a tale of changing ideas on feminism & racism, as well. We were lucky enough to arrange a chat with the author over coffee - she's lovely and the book is terrific.
    • 5/5
      This is a heartwarming and intelligent novel about friendship set against the backdrop of the sixties in Palo Alto, California. The story of several young women yearning for something greater than their narrowly prescribed lives as wives and mothers is woven together beautifully with the story of the nation at a pivotal point in its history. Highly recommended for book groups.
    • 5/5
      I could have been a character in this book! It really took me back to the 60's and 70's through their lives. The only flaw might have been that it ws too much of a dialog of the time period. But it sure kept my interest and the characters were very real to life. A fun read.