We chose “Normal Women” for our Big Read book. We were attracted by the topic and by Philippa Gregory’s reputation as a readable novelist of historical fiction.
The book has over 600 pages, divided into 9 sections covering different historical periods. As we realised that not everyone would be able to read all of it before our discussion evening, we recruited volunteers to take a section each. We asked them to focus on one or two things in their section that had particularly surprised or interested them.
How did we get on? The evening worked well, having split up the book. However we all found it a very dense read. There is a great deal of information but this comes in snippets which meant that we could only read it in short sections. We felt it lacked any flow.
The structure of each section was similar with the material presented under many of the same headings. This resulted in quite a bit of repetition even though different time periods were ostensibly being discussed.
Overall we were disappointed with the book. Perhaps several shorter books, each covering a clearly defined theme, would have worked better.
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