A review by heidirgorecki
The Women's March by Jennifer Chiaverini

3.0

I really struggled with this book. I have read Ms Chiaverini's book "Resistance Women", also a fictionalized version of real people and events, and absolutely loved it, so I was expecting much of the same with this. However, "The Women's March" was mostly a narrative of facts and events, with very small bits of dialogue scattered in, making it read more like a nonfiction history book or a biography of the 3 women featured. It didn't feel at all like a fiction book. I'm not really sure what was fictionalized but it seemed to be trying to have a foot in both worlds instead of doing either really well.

Fiction is supposed to allow you to step into the characters' worlds, while being laced with emotion and dialogue, feeling what they are feeling while walking with them in their story. This, however, had very little emotion, and felt like you were outside looking in, watching events as they happened instead of being invited into them. This was almost a DNF for me, except that I know very little about women's suffrage and felt it was an important story to hear nonetheless, although I probably skimmed most of the second half just trying to get thru it. Bottom line, the content was important and good but if this was supposed to be a novel of fiction, it fell very flat for me and I was really disappointed with it.

Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.