Do we change or does the world change us?
Jo and Bethie Kaufman were born into a world full of promise.
Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect “Dick and Jane” house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life.
But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women’s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?
Jo and Bethie are a pair of Jewish sisters and their Judaism definitely does play a role in the novel. That's always a draw for me. There were lots of other things about this novel that I liked. I loved that it spanned from the 50's to today (2022). I loved the themes covered in the book, the main one being women's roles. But the novel covers too many themes, too many things happen to these sisters, and at times it just seemed to drag. It's a fairly long book (416 pages), longer than I expected. The chapters were very long, too. I wonder if it's the lengthy chapters that slowed it down for me. Yet the final chapter, where I think I needed a bit more, was fairly short.
Overall, I turned the last page and was just glad to be finished with it. Not the greatest endorsement for a novel.
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