My high school history class read this book for our "Portrayals of History" class. I was excited to see something about women's suffrage, because there are very few things about women's suffrage out there for the public.
First of all, the name "suffragette" was a derogatory
…more term used by anti-suffragists that was later reclaimed by British suffragettes. American people in favor of women's suffrage were called "suffragists"; "suffragette" would have still been negative. This book is American, not British, and therefore should not have used the term "suffragette".
The chapters were very LOOSELY tied together, really just with the young girl, Grace. I would have liked to see some more connections between them. There were clearly some chapters that focused on the history and were well-researched (such as "Just Politics"). However, there were also quite a few stories that were fully fiction and the mix between the two were confusing. These authors have clearly never written short stories and each one felt like the first chapter to their own book. I enjoy historical fiction, but had never heard of these authors. It seems that all the people giving these reviews liked the authors.
As for accuracy, it's not terrible because it is intended to be historical fiction. But, the mix between the nonfiction and the fictionalized creates a mess.
It seems like the authors didn't even talk to each other. Many of the stories seemed unoriginal and overdone. For example, there are two stories about infertile women longing for children. There were also many poor, immigrant, women that have unsupportive men in their lives that hate on suffragists. The "woe is me" female suffragist is overdone in this book. My class forgot the plots of many of the stories because they bled into each other so much.
There were very few non-white characters, which isn't necessarily inaccurate, but the non-white characters were the most well-rounded characters because they were real. Why did the non-white characters have to be real? Couldn't they have made fictionalized POC characters?
Overall, the book wasn't memorable at all and I do not recommend it for anyone interested in the topic. I love history so my favorite stories were the history-filled ones. (less)
