Wednesday Sisters (Clayton)

Book Reviews 
Clayton captures the evolution of a decades-long friendship in an highly accessible narrative. She grabs the reader's attention—while introducing compelling and quirky characters that are easy to identify with. The Wednesday Sisters is a refreshing alternative. —Jessica Harrison
Salt Lake City Deseret News

The Wednesday Sisters poignantly illustrates the way it really was back in the days when the glass ceiling was more like the roof of a marble tomb—Though all their hopes aren't realized, the friendship these women share provides a haven for each one anyway—and for the readers of this novel. —Faye Jones
Nashville Scene

In her light second novel, Clayton chronicles a group of mothers who convene in a Palo Alto park and share their changing lives as the late 1960s counterculture blossoms around them. Linda is a runner who tracks women's progress at the Olympics. Brett has one eye on the moon, where men are living out her astronaut dreams. Southern belle Kath isn't convinced she has dreams outside the confines of her marriage (but she's open to persuasion), while quiet Ally only hopes for what the other women already have: a child. Frankie, a Chicago transplant who has followed her computer genius husband to a nascent Silicon Valley, is the story's narrator and the ladies' ringleader, inspiring them all to follow her dream of becoming a writer. They write in moments snatched from their household chores and share their stories in the park. Though the narration and story lines are so syrupy they verge on hokey, Clayton ably conjures the era's details and captures the women's changing roles in a world that expects little of them.
Publishers Weekly

Readers will be swept up by this moving novel about female friendship and enthralled by the recounting of a pivotal year in American history as seen through these young women’s eyes. —Aleksandra Walker.
Booklist

Meg Waite Clayton's stirring novel will appeal not just to those who secretly wish to be writers, but to anyone with a love of great books; anyone who has felt truly moved by a book or an author; and anyone who has had their dreams bolstered by good and faithful friends. It will speak volumes to fans of The Friday Night Knitting Club and The Jane Austen Book Club. You'll want to share The Wednesday Sisters with anyone who believes in the power of a good book—to inspire those close to us, and for those who inspire.
Bronwyn Miller - BookReporter

A story of female friendship in Palo Alto evokes the '60s, including the stirrings of second-wave feminism. Beauty-pageant protests, inequality for female athletes, daughters denied educational opportunities and many other not-so-subtle reminders of how far we've come pepper Clayton's predictable second novel, which brings together Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett and Ally in a Californian park in 1967. Their friendship inspires a writing group, the Wednesday Sisters Writing Society, and also a support network as crises come and go: There are Ally's miscarriages; Linda's health scare; Kath's marriage problems. The women share confessions, rifts and revelations which edge them toward greater achievement, while behind them a stream of iconic '60s moments—the Olympic Black Power salute; the moon landing—and books (Love Story, The French Lieutenant's Woman) add period flavor.
Kirkus Reviews