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Here we can discuss our thoughts :)

Been on my TBR for years so I’m really excited!

I love chapter two, Francie going to the library. It reminds me in some way the character of Mathilda by Roald Dahl.
I would have liked the librarian was kind and helpful with Francie.

Early chapters yet, but I feel like I like Francie a lot, and her family dynamics are interesting. Too many names, I couldn't keep in my mind :) Also, the story didn't show itself yet, so I'm not sure where this will go.

"The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed the door open and went in. She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library paste and freshly-inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass." (Chapter 2)

Love it! :)

Glad to hear you are all enjoying it. I'm loving diving back into this book. Francie is one of my favourite characters for sure.

I find chapter IX tender and deep, a bond between mother and daugther, when Katie asks Mary Rommely what she must do to build a better future for Francie.
I also like the way in which the author is able to summarize so well in a few pages the family environment of Francie’s parents.

Of Francie’s parents

I got off to a slow start but I am all caught up now! So far I’m enjoying it very much. Times were so hard for families, especially immigrant and poor families. All these years later and nothing has really changed much in the States. Still arguing in the right to not vaccinate your children to get into public school.

I’m struck by a couple of things: Francie is so lonely, it’s sad and how resilient the women are - much more than the men!

I can't stop gushing about this book! I'm so in love with it and with Francie's character! Everything about it is so perfect and it's exactly my cup of tea (Particularly the pacing, ironically, since it's the one main complaint people seem to have about this book. I never found any chapter slow and personally, I'm not a fan of the fast paced and too intense anyways) . Everyday I look forward to getting home from work and immersing myself in Francie's world again. There are so many paragraphs that make you just stop and reread over and over again, I think at this rate I might highlight all of the book and just be done with it 😂 Chapter 30 was especially moving and I could feel Betty Smith's anger and bitterness at how Women treat each other, and it's sad that this is still a reality even decades after this book's publication. God I have to stop myself before this turns into a full on mushy rant 😂 Suffice it to say that this book became one of my new favourites only a couple of chapters in, I have no idea why I've waited this long to get to it

I’m really enjoying this book, the heart breaks, the struggles, and all. I was thinking about how hard Francie had it and just what it took to survive on a daily basis, amd about girls her age now worried about excelling! Not just surviving, but having such high expectations put on them. Sure they have many more freedoms nene opportunities, but still with all off that, pressure.

Not only to be fortunate to go to school, graduate school, but pressures of getting into a good college and requirements that takes to do so these days.

Nada wrote: "I can't stop gushing about this book! I'm so in love with it and with Francie's character! Everything about it is so perfect and it's exactly my cup of tea (Particularly the pacing, ironically, sin..."

I felt the same way in chapter 30. It’s over century ago and it seems we’ve learned nothing. Still arguing over immunizations, unions, immigration, etc...

I'm also enjoying it a lot. It fascinates me how the writer did character development in so much detail. It's slow, but really rich. Really happy I joined this read along, as I wouldn't pick it up myself probably :)

I would love to hear other's ideas about Sissy - I can't quite put my thoughts together about her.

I adore her up to where I’ve read, which is chapter 40. I know women who are never the same after a still birth, so I can’t even imagine sissy’s heartbreak after 10. She just wanted to be a mother. Did she handle the “adoption� the right way? Not really, but it was better than what the girl’s father wanted, which was just to starve the baby and his daughter.

She does have an unhealthy obcession with the name “John�.

I finished it and absolutely adored it! The only drawback is that I fear I will have a bit of a book hangover now ...

I may have teared up a bit at end and I will miss reading this everyday,

I loved this one as much the second time as I did the first. I didn't read this book until I was an adult - and think I appreciated it more than if I had read it as a teenager. Although as a teenager, I may have been able to identify more with Francie. Even though Francie is in the center of the stories, I think it takes age and experience to more fully comprehend the experiences of her grandmother, her mother and her aunts.

A beautiful book!

What an absolutely marvelous marvelous book!! I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I won't go back home to the Nolans tonight 😭 I didn't want it to end :( Definitely one of my top favourite books of all time!! Thank you Ange for hosting this readalong 😃

P.S. I feel like Katie is a bit underappreciated, whenever someone talks about the book they mostly talk about Francie (Which is understandable since she's the main character and an amazing one at that) but Katie's strength and resilience and how determined she was to see her family survive and be better against all the odds and hardships really endeared her to me! She has her faults of course but that's the beauty of Betty Smith's characters, no one is perfect, just perfectly human

All the women in this book were tough as nails . If you notice in every instance it was the women who rose to the occasion. They continually put their family first, were the backbone and strength in the family,

Agreed!! This book has an incredible cast of female characters whose strength doesn't have to rely purely on the physical aspect like many of today's heroines