...And Ladies of the Club in Reading the Chunksters

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...And Ladies of the Club

Helen Hooven Santmyer

Start date: July 15, 2016

Finish date: September 1, 2016

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Sep 13, 2020 Kaycie rated it it was amazing

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This 5 star rating seems silly...the stars are for books, but this wasn't a book at all. I opened the front cover and fell into a portal to Waynesboro, OH in 1868. After I was sucked into this portal, I spent 60 years in Anne Gordan's parlor as a member of the Waynesboro Women's Club, and I had the privilege to share her life...her joys and sorrows along with the day to day task of just living. Through Anne, I learned how to see the magic in every day life and live life to the fullest, even whil This 5 star rating seems silly...the stars are for books, but this wasn't a book at all. I opened the front cover and fell into a portal to Waynesboro, OH in 1868. After I was sucked into this portal, I spent 60 years in Anne Gordan's parlor as a member of the Waynesboro Women's Club, and I had the privilege to share her life...her joys and sorrows along with the day to day task of just living. Through Anne, I learned how to see the magic in every day life and live life to the fullest, even while learning to cope with grace and still maintain a happy outlook when the universe really throws it all at you.

When I emerged from this portal ~2 weeks later, I was shocked to find I wasn't an 80-year-old woman who had just lived her entire life. It was a bittersweet moment - my life with Anne and Sally had ended and I grieved their loss at the end of this book like I would have life-long friends. But then I realized I had the rest of my own life to live, which has been made better for having this two amazing ladies and their family and friends a part of it. Thank you, ladies, for allowing me to be a member of your prestigious club. I am a better person for it.

If you can't tell, I LOVED this book. Like, this is an all-time favoritest book ever, and I will 100% be re-reading this. It is quite the hefty read, at ~1200 very large pages with very tiny print, but I didn't skip a word and wanted 1200 more pages when I had finished.

This absolutely beautiful historical fiction paints a wonderful picture of the daily life of two women and their families, and we get to share weddings and babies and politics and wars and grief and loss and overall friendship, love, and life with them. This portal is a glimpse into the daily existence of these women, and somehow it is never once boring.

I laughed and cried and experienced immense joy and overwhelming grief in my journey through this book. In essence, I lived several lives over the course of the two weeks it took me to read this, and it is not an exaggeration to say this book provided me with so many life experiences, I was not the same person at the end. ...more

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