Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by lillimoore
The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers
3.0
15-year-old Maddie Sykes is a young Southern teen who dreams of someday becoming a renowned seamstress, just like her aunt Etta, who she would visit in Bright Leaf, North Carolina and learn the craft from each summer. After losing her father in World War II, Maddie is becoming increasingly distant from her mother, who in her grief and anger has switched her focus from mothering Maddie to finding a new husband that can take care of the two of them. In order to fully focus on that effort, Maddie's mother dumps her at her aunt's home with no notice to either Maddie or Etta, in the middle of Etta's busiest dressmaking season. It's the beginning of the summer in 1946, and all of the wives of the tobacco executives at the Bright Leaf Tobacco Company are gearing up for the company's annual gala, the biggest event of the year. Traditionally, these glamorous tobacco wives seek out Etta's renowned seamstress skills to create divine dresses that showcase their good looks and important roles within the town. Maddie feels just awful that her mother has burdened Etta with caring for her that summer, but Etta decides that she can use the extra hands from her talented niece to get all of the work done that summer.
As the two are just getting started on preparations for the gala dresses, Etta falls ill and is unable to work for some time. The task falls to Maddie, who with the support of several friendly faces around town, works furiously over the course of several weeks to make sure all of the ladies of Bright Leaf look their very best come gala time. While her aunt is in the hospital, Elizabeth "Mitzi" Winston, wife of the CEO of Bright Leaf tobacco Richard Winston and the most prominent of the tobacco wives, takes Maddie under her wing. Mitzi is gorgeous and gregarious, but mysteriously still without children, even though Maddie thinks she has to be at least 30 by now. All that untapped motherly energy is diverted towards both Maddie as well as Mitzi and Richard's other charge, David, who has a keen eye for Maddie upon her arrival. While she is staying with the Winston family and sewing together lavish creations for all of the ladies in town, Maddie accidentally stumbles upon a discovery about the tobacco industry that sustains the entire community—a discovery that could threaten the very livelihood of the women for whom she is creating these dresses. She is torn between two worlds: a world in which everyone's health is prioritized, and a world in which the community's economy is. Will Maddie expose the tobacco industry for the health hazard that it is? Will anyone believe her if she does? Or will she keep this information to herself for the sake of the jobs that sustain the good folks of Bright Leaf?
Despite a few blunders, I really enjoyed this debut novel from Adele Myers. Maddie is a really fun character—sweet, bold, talented, and determined. Mitzi is an equally engaging character, and one with a bit more depth. These two shone the brightest particularly when they were defending one another. The relationship between these two characters was perhaps my favorite part of this book, but I really wish that it had been better handled in the back portion of the book. I think it would have made much more sense for these two characters to collaborate and negotiate to get what they want, especially because this is at its heart a coming-of-age story, and those are two values that teenagers need to be armed with to make a transition into full-fledged adulthood. The other characters in this story are fairly onenote, and their motivations didn't always make a ton of sense to me. Maddie's mother and her actions were really nothing more than a vehicle for Maddie's wild Bright Leaf summer, Cornelia and Ashley both had a lot of potential that I felt was left untapped, and even Maddie herself is really frustrating in the epilogue and end of the book. Another thing that bugged me a lot about the characterizations in this book was the ambiguity with which sexual orientation was handled. Maybe it gave the villians in this story a bit more leverage, but it felt like a tool or a token more than a real reckoning of what it meant to be gay or a lesbian in the 1940s South, and Anthony, Etta, and Frances all deserved better in this regard. If you had to choose a minority discussion to add to this book, I think a discussion of race would have been much more relevant to the story and setting than a discussion of sexuality. I appreciate the author's attempt to add diversity into her book somehow but I think she made the wrong choice when it came time to execute. This book had a really unique subject, and I loved the plot and setting, but the characters fell terribly short, which is too bad because they could have made this book a home run with just a little more time left to bake in the proverbial oven.
The pacing was also pretty off in this book. I was engaged throughout, but suddenly we were travelling at warp speed towards the end there, and it all wrapped up so fast with very little falling action that I think would have really helped it out. I was ready to give this book 4 stars until I got to the epilogue. God, that was a horrible epilogue! The conversation between Mitzi and Maddie years after the events of the novel was so forced and clunky and awkward and awful. I would have much preferred to see the direct fallout following the climax of this book at the gala than to skip ahead a ton of years. The epilogue felt ultra preachy and just weird.
Where this book really sparkles is in its setting. I felt transported to the tobacco-fueled economy of 1940s North Carolina, and loved reading about the town, its ladies, their gossip, and especially their dresses. The tobacco industry at this time was a subject I knew very little about. I found it fascinating how much misinformation surrounding smoking was available to the public less than a century ago. "It's great for your lungs, cures a cough, and calms expecting mothers!" I'm sorry, what???? Truly hard to believe. It was very fun learning about this piece of history and getting a little insight into what life was like for women nearing the end of the war when the men began to return and take their jobs back; guess what? Those ladies wanted to keep those jobs, and a lot of changes sprang forth from this moment. This in particular is the reason I chose this book as one of my Women's History Month reads. Yes, it had some glaring oddities, but ultimately, I was swept away reading this book and would happily recommend it to fans of Kristin Hannah, Delia Owens, and Elizabeth Gilbert!
As the two are just getting started on preparations for the gala dresses, Etta falls ill and is unable to work for some time. The task falls to Maddie, who with the support of several friendly faces around town, works furiously over the course of several weeks to make sure all of the ladies of Bright Leaf look their very best come gala time. While her aunt is in the hospital, Elizabeth "Mitzi" Winston, wife of the CEO of Bright Leaf tobacco Richard Winston and the most prominent of the tobacco wives, takes Maddie under her wing. Mitzi is gorgeous and gregarious, but mysteriously still without children, even though Maddie thinks she has to be at least 30 by now. All that untapped motherly energy is diverted towards both Maddie as well as Mitzi and Richard's other charge, David, who has a keen eye for Maddie upon her arrival. While she is staying with the Winston family and sewing together lavish creations for all of the ladies in town, Maddie accidentally stumbles upon a discovery about the tobacco industry that sustains the entire community—a discovery that could threaten the very livelihood of the women for whom she is creating these dresses. She is torn between two worlds: a world in which everyone's health is prioritized, and a world in which the community's economy is. Will Maddie expose the tobacco industry for the health hazard that it is? Will anyone believe her if she does? Or will she keep this information to herself for the sake of the jobs that sustain the good folks of Bright Leaf?
Despite a few blunders, I really enjoyed this debut novel from Adele Myers. Maddie is a really fun character—sweet, bold, talented, and determined. Mitzi is an equally engaging character, and one with a bit more depth. These two shone the brightest particularly when they were defending one another. The relationship between these two characters was perhaps my favorite part of this book, but I really wish that it had been better handled in the back portion of the book. I think it would have made much more sense for these two characters to collaborate and negotiate to get what they want, especially because this is at its heart a coming-of-age story, and those are two values that teenagers need to be armed with to make a transition into full-fledged adulthood. The other characters in this story are fairly onenote, and their motivations didn't always make a ton of sense to me. Maddie's mother and her actions were really nothing more than a vehicle for Maddie's wild Bright Leaf summer, Cornelia and Ashley both had a lot of potential that I felt was left untapped, and even Maddie herself is really frustrating in the epilogue and end of the book. Another thing that bugged me a lot about the characterizations in this book was the ambiguity with which sexual orientation was handled. Maybe it gave the villians in this story a bit more leverage, but it felt like a tool or a token more than a real reckoning of what it meant to be gay or a lesbian in the 1940s South, and Anthony, Etta, and Frances all deserved better in this regard. If you had to choose a minority discussion to add to this book, I think a discussion of race would have been much more relevant to the story and setting than a discussion of sexuality. I appreciate the author's attempt to add diversity into her book somehow but I think she made the wrong choice when it came time to execute. This book had a really unique subject, and I loved the plot and setting, but the characters fell terribly short, which is too bad because they could have made this book a home run with just a little more time left to bake in the proverbial oven.
The pacing was also pretty off in this book. I was engaged throughout, but suddenly we were travelling at warp speed towards the end there, and it all wrapped up so fast with very little falling action that I think would have really helped it out. I was ready to give this book 4 stars until I got to the epilogue. God, that was a horrible epilogue! The conversation between Mitzi and Maddie years after the events of the novel was so forced and clunky and awkward and awful. I would have much preferred to see the direct fallout following the climax of this book at the gala than to skip ahead a ton of years. The epilogue felt ultra preachy and just weird.
Where this book really sparkles is in its setting. I felt transported to the tobacco-fueled economy of 1940s North Carolina, and loved reading about the town, its ladies, their gossip, and especially their dresses. The tobacco industry at this time was a subject I knew very little about. I found it fascinating how much misinformation surrounding smoking was available to the public less than a century ago. "It's great for your lungs, cures a cough, and calms expecting mothers!" I'm sorry, what???? Truly hard to believe. It was very fun learning about this piece of history and getting a little insight into what life was like for women nearing the end of the war when the men began to return and take their jobs back; guess what? Those ladies wanted to keep those jobs, and a lot of changes sprang forth from this moment. This in particular is the reason I chose this book as one of my Women's History Month reads. Yes, it had some glaring oddities, but ultimately, I was swept away reading this book and would happily recommend it to fans of Kristin Hannah, Delia Owens, and Elizabeth Gilbert!