Hello again! This weekend I got a few books read, but my favorite was The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers. I thought it was a quick, interesting read that gave a good look into women’s places in power structures run by men. There was a lot of history mixed in with the day-to-day life of the main character, and the story was relatable without being too on the nose.
This book follows the niece of a seamstress to the “Tobacco Wives” of a small North Carolina town run by cigarette companies in the 1930s and 40s. The author touches on all kinds of dynamics within the starkly different classes of people created in small-towns with big business. The town I’m from was predominately a mill town in this time period, so I like to imagine there were some similarities in how things were between Brightleaf, NC and Camden, SC.
Without giving too much of this book away, in case you might also feel like picking it up for a weekend read, I thought the writing was good enough and the characters were well rounded without falling flat, which meant it was able to keep me interested the whole way through.
I think this book does a good job of highlighting how life can sometimes end up very different from how you think it works when you’re a teenager. Everything is obvious and right there in black and white in the mind of teenage girls. Of course people should be treated right, of course companies should value the workers producing their products and allowing for the money to flow, of course women should be listened to. But, the older you get, the more you realize the world is greyer than it seems.
Maddy was a fun character, her naivety let me get lost in the world of a cigarette empire. Her heartbreak at dishonesty and her disappointment in the adults around her was, at times, hard to relive, but I don’t think you should let that deter you from giving this a read.
Things are more often than not unfair, and The Tobacco Wives shows that in so many different ways. I thought the ending was wrapped up with a nice bow, and I love a book that wraps things up nicely.
It’s crazy knowing what we know now, to ever imagine a time when tobacco was king. I really love to read historical fiction because I feel it highlights how blessed we are these days, even though we have different problems now. Thank God for modern medicine is all I have to say.
Anyhow, until next time! Have you read this book? What are your thoughts?
Just ordered it! Can’t wait to read it!