Julie's Review: Terrible Virtue

Author: Ellen Feldman
Series: None
Publication Date: March 22, 2016
Publisher: Harper
Pages: 272
Obtained: publisher
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
Bottom Line: A fascinating novel about a complex and forward thinking woman
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Grab!

Summary: In the spirit of The Paris Wife and Loving Frank, the provocative and compelling story of one of the most fascinating and influential figures of the twentieth century: Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood—an indomitable woman who, more than any other, and at great personal cost, shaped the sexual landscape we inhabit today. The daughter of a hard-drinking, smooth-tongued free thinker and a mother worn down by thirteen children, Margaret Sanger vowed her life would be different. Trained as a nurse, she fought for social justice beside labor organizers, anarchists, socialists, and other progressives, eventually channeling her energy to one singular cause: legalizing contraception. It was a battle that would pit her against puritanical, patriarchal lawmakers, send her to prison again and again, force her to flee to England, and ultimately change the lives of women across the country and around the world. This complex enigmatic revolutionary was at once vain and charismatic, generous and ruthless, sexually impulsive and coolly calculating—a competitive, self-centered woman who championed all women, a conflicted mother who suffered the worst tragedy a parent can experience. From opening the first illegal birth control clinic in America in 1916 through the founding of Planned Parenthood to the arrival of the Pill in the 1960s, Margaret Sanger sacrificed two husbands, three children, and scores of lovers in her fight for sexual equality and freedom. With cameos by such legendary figures as Emma Goldman, John Reed, Big Bill Haywood, H. G. Wells, and the love of Margaret’s life, Havelock Ellis, this richly imagined portrait of a larger-than-life woman is at once sympathetic to her suffering and unsparing of her faults. Deeply insightful, Terrible Virtue is Margaret Sanger’s story as she herself might have told it. ~amazon.com  

Review: Terrible Virtue is a story about a driven, complex but flawed woman. Margaret Sanger is determined to make life better for women. She goes to incredible lengths to teach women about means to not get pregnant. She wants women who live in the tenements to be in control of how many children they have, especially because with each pregnancy it becomes more of a burden.

I would almost say that for most of her adult life, Margaret had tunnel vision on her mission to give women the power over their bodies that most desired. I don't think Margaret was going to win any mom of the year awards because she was so often gone from them and when she was around, she was too busy. I'm not saying that she wasn't a good mom because it was evident that she loved her  children fiercely, she just loved her mission more. She might have also loved Bill but she wanted the freedom to be who she was and do as she pleased. She didn't want to be tied down.

Her affairs and sexual appetite were part of who she was and who she wanted to be. She didn't want to be defined by the times. She definitely wanted to buck the system and she did. She turned heads wherever she went. Men wanted her and usually they got her, if she was interested in them as well. Women admired her and wanted to be her.

Her drive is what got her to break through a system that held women back. It is what abled her to get funding for her first women's center, even if it was closed by the police.Most would say she sacraficed her family to help women; I don't think that's what she would say. She would say it was her purpose in life.

I shudder to think where we might be if she had not been as successful as she had been. As I was reading this book, I was also thinking about how a lot of what she went through seems to be replaying itself today, which is sad. She would be so disappointed that women are still fighting for equality in some ways and that what she fought for is still being fought for.

I went into this novel knowing very little about Ms. Sanger and I do believe that Ms. Feldman did her life justice. I think that she portrayed Ms. Sanger's strong voice and drive extremely well. As I usually do with historical fiction, I googled on Ms. Sanger.

If you are looking for a novel on a strong, pioneering woman than look no further than Terrible Virtue.

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And the Winner Is...

Congratulations to DarcyO for winning a copy of Next to Love by Ellen Feldman.

An email should be waiting for you, please respond with your mailing address so we can send the book to you as soon as possible!

Thanks to everyone who entered. As usual GJR used Random.org to generate the winner.


 

Giveaway: Next to Love

We are pleased have an paperback ARC of Ellen Feldman's fantastic novel, Next to Love. Both Alice and Julie fell in love with the novel and hope the winner will enjoy it as much as they did. Just fill out the form below to be entered! Good luck!

Next to Love Summary: For fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, The Postmistress, and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, a story of love, war, loss, and the scars they leave set during the years of World War II and its aftermath. It’s 1941. Babe throws like a boy, thinks for herself, and never expects to escape the poor section of her quiet Massachusetts town. Then World War II breaks out, and everything changes. Her friend Grace, married to a reporter on the local paper, fears being left alone with her infant daughter when her husband is shipped out; Millie, the third member of their childhood trio, now weds the boy who always refused to settle down; and Babe wonders if she should marry Claude, who even as a child could never harm a living thing. As the war rages abroad, life on the home front undergoes its own battles and victories; and when the men return, and civilian life resumes, nothing can go back to quite the way it was. From postwar traumas to women’s rights, racial injustice to anti-Semitism, Babe, Grace, and Millie experience the dislocations, the acute pains, and the exhilaration of a society in flux. Along the way, they will learn what it means to be a wife, a mother, a friend, a fighter, and a survivor. Beautiful, startling, and heartbreaking, Next to Love is a love letter to the brave women who shaped a nation’s destiny. ~amazon.com





 

Alice's Review: Next to Love

 Summary:  “War . . . next to love, has most captured the world’s imagination.”—Eric Partridge, British lexicographer, 1914. A story of love, war, loss, and the scars they leave, Next to Love follows the lives of three young women and their men during the years of World War II and its aftermath, beginning with the men going off to war and ending a generation later, when their children are on the cusp of their own adulthood.
Set in a small town in Massachusetts, the novel follows three childhood friends, Babe, Millie, and Grace, whose lives are unmoored when their men are called to duty. And yet the changes that are thrust upon them move them in directions they never dreamed possible—while their husbands and boyfriends are enduring their own transformations. In the decades that follow, the three friends lose their innocence, struggle to raise their children, and find meaning and love in unexpected places. And as they change, so does America—from a country in which people know their place in the social hierarchy to a world in which feminism, the Civil Rights movement, and technological innovations present new possibilities—and uncertainties. And yet Babe, Millie, and Grace remain bonded by their past, even as their children grow up and away and a new society rises from the ashes of the war.  Beautifully crafted and unforgettable, Next to Love depicts the enduring power of love and friendship, and illuminates a transformational moment in American history. ~amazon.com

Review:  Again I am faced with the quandary of what to write for a novel I was over the moon for. This novel was by far one of my favorite this year. I have a bit of a World War II fascination. I have a tremendous amount of respect and compassion for our American Soldier. I can’t even begin to tell you how I feel about the other heroes of the war: the wives, girlfriends, mothers, etc. of the soldier. The ones who stayed behind and waited and prayed and hoped their men would return. One of my all-time favorite books isn’t actually my book at all but one I steal from my sister at least once a year to read with tears in my eyes as my heart swells. That book is Love Stories of World War II by Larry King. I love that book because it is the before, it is the falling in love, the rushed marriages, the chance taking and hoping for the best. This novel, Next to Love, is the fictional after.

Next to Love follows the lives, pre and post war, of three friends. Of the three, my favorite is Babe. She was strong willed and fiercely independent. I remember hearing (or reading) once that a woman’s heart is so vast and deep. We hold so much in, feel so much more than we are willing to share, not even with each other. I believe this novel exemplifies that belief. Each woman had her cross to bear; each had to carry on in spite of her circumstances. Each had to deal with the after: the what happens when a husband returns or worse, what happens when he doesn’t. Some do it with grace and others well, no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t do it. They fell apart. And while some could pull themselves together, others never recovered. Each woman is different but each has the same heart, a woman’s heart.

I believe this review isn’t about the novel as much as it’s about the spirit of woman. Just as I believe Next to Love isn’t about the war but about the women who stayed behind.

This novel was beautifully written, heartfelt. Incredible. I know I have focused a lot on the the women in this novel however there is one character that touched me the most, young Jack, Pete Swallow's son.  I loved Jack.  I loved how he grew from a confused little boy to a confident man. One who searchers for his true identity though out the novel and finds it is in the most incredible way.

Overall, I loved Next To Love and I can’t wait to read it again.

Final Take: 4/5

For more about the novel, read Julie's review

Julie's Review: Next To Love

Summary: “War . . . next to love, has most captured the world’s imagination.”—Eric Partridge, British lexicographer, 1914. A story of love, war, loss, and the scars they leave, Next to Love follows the lives of three young women and their men during the years of World War II and its aftermath, beginning with the men going off to war and ending a generation later, when their children are on the cusp of their own adulthood.
Set in a small town in Massachusetts, the novel follows three childhood friends, Babe, Millie, and Grace, whose lives are unmoored when their men are called to duty. And yet the changes that are thrust upon them move them in directions they never dreamed possible—while their husbands and boyfriends are enduring their own transformations. In the decades that follow, the three friends lose their innocence, struggle to raise their children, and find meaning and love in unexpected places. And as they change, so does America—from a country in which people know their place in the social hierarchy to a world in which feminism, the Civil Rights movement, and technological innovations present new possibilities—and uncertainties. And yet Babe, Millie, and Grace remain bonded by their past, even as their children grow up and away and a new society rises from the ashes of the war.
Beautifully crafted and unforgettable, Next to Love depicts the enduring power of love and friendship, and illuminates a transformational moment in American history.~amazon.com

Review: I hate to admit it, but World War II history isn't something I normally read. Perhaps this is because I am under the impression all of the books about this time period are non-fiction. Next to Love is a powerful, moving and unforgettable novel about the long lasting effects that war has on not only the men (and women) who fought in it but their loved ones as well. The novel takes us over decades with 3 friends who have been inseparable since Kindergarten. We are first introduced to Babe, who is from the wrong side of town and a bit of a rebel. Millie, is the classic beauty and Grace, is the one who can never do any wrong.

Perhaps it is because we are introduced to her first or maybe it's because of her spunk, Babe remained my favorite throughout the novel. She is the one that changes for me by battling the effects the war had on her husband and herself. How she keeps it together for both of them through some very tough years. How she herself finally finds purpose in the late 1950s/early 1960s with the NAACP. Her husband, Claude, is a solid and gentle man but when he returns from the war he is tortured. He has nightmares and he builds a wall around himself. They both turn to drinking to help them cope. These days they'd be in rehab but back then no one talked about it or acknowledged it. I loved how they made it through the rough times only to come out (seemingly) stronger. I feel that people took marriage a bit more seriously back then. Divorce didn't happen for minute reasons but only for something extraordinary.

While I enjoyed Millie's story, I can't really say much without giving away anything. I will say that I did like the progression of her story and how her son Peter (Jack) grew up into a fine young man.

Grace was the only character who drove me a bit nuts. She defined herself by her marriage to Charlie. She married young and had no sense of self. She let other people sway her into thinking certain ways instead of making decisions on her own. She was very much the epitome of women during that generation. She could never decide on her own happiness and was therefore miserable most of her life. This has a profound affect on her daughter Amy and the choices she will make in her young adult and adult life.

Ms. Feldman has wrote a gem of a novel. It has all the elements of a wonderful read: realistic characters, strong writing, strong plot and a perfect period in history to explore. I felt that I was on this journey with the 3 friends and I was sorry to see it end.

My favorite part of the book was during the war when the women would receive letters from the men while they were training and then fighting for freedom and their lives. These pages in the book jumped out for me and took me inside the men of the book. The art of a letter is certainly something that has been lost on this generation and more than likely, future generations sadly.

From looking at her website I can tell that Ms. Feldman loves historical fiction. She obviously took her time researching World War II and the other events that came afterward.

For lovers of historical fiction and perhaps others like me that haven't read a lot of novel based on World War II, then Next to Love should make it onto your "TBR" pile.
 
Next to Love is to be released on 7/26/2011 by Random House.

Final Take: 4.25/5

Thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC of the novel to read and review.