mjwhitlock18 's review for:

All You Have to Do Is Call by Kerri Maher, Kerri Maher

5.0

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Based on a real group called the Jane Collective in 1960s/1970s Chicago, this novel follows fictional storylines of the women involved in an underground network that provided safe, accessible, clean abortions. Women from varied educational, socioeconomic, and life-stage situations, turned advocacy and feminism into action. Their stories are nuanced and detailed, as they each discover what choice means to them and how they reconcile that with their other roles, including wife, mother, sister, professor. It is engaging, complex, and thought-provoking. I will admit, at times, this pre-Roe v Wade story hit a little too close to home here in a post-Dobbs world. I felt sad, angry, frustrated, defeated, proud, hopeful, energized, and powerful. I’m still thinking about this book, months after I finished it.