I liked the plain, but fresh design on the cover of the book, and the summary of the characters on the back was useful to begin with to remind me who was who. The summary of world events for each year (1978 1981) puts the book into context, but also shows how irrelevant these events were in the Australian outback, where the book is set.
This book is about a group of women who get together through love of books, and struggle to meet due to the huge distances and weather conditions in the Australian outback. Friendships develop and they help each other through some tough life experiences. I loved the descriptions of the Australian countryside, and didn’t appreciate how the wet and dry seasons drastically altered the land.
Some of the men in the book are shown as sexist and racist, having poor opinions of women and aboriginals. Is that a reflection of the time or have attitudes, as well as news, bypassed the remote area?
The missing son of one of the women features in the development of the story, but we were never told why he had cut himself off from his family. I expected this to be explained, but it was not.
How to bring people together, and keep them together is sometimes a problem for every one everywhere. It is very easy not to get involved, or to fail to follow up and sustain relationships. We are very used to having our book clubs near to us – we are lucky!