A review by kelseigh
Sofie & Cecilia by Katherine Ashenburg

informative reflective sad slow-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

While Sophie & Cecilia presents itself as a story of female friendship, it's notable that their friendship is actually a through-line that the novel hangs on, but isn't actually what the book is about. Rather, it has much more to do with how marraige and gender roles in early 20th century Sweden stifled and held back women from self-actualizaton, demanding they give up their dreams in service of their husbands. And yet, this was a period where cracks were beginning to show in those long-standing traditional roles, giving both women the opportunity to catch glimpses of what the could become if they could learn how to grasp it. 

All in all, the novel is a grand character study with a focus on developing gender roles, and how the friendship between two women with similar yet very different lives are nuidged in new directions by their occasional correspondence and meetings in the art world of the day. If there is a primary criticism I'd make of the book, it's that I would have liked to see much more of their interactions, to get a feeling of just why they meant so much to each other, which seems to have largely been assumed by the author throughout.