"The Calamity Club" by Kathleen Stockett. Started a little slow but on recommendations from others I stuck with it and so happy I did. The character development was so interesting. Loved the lovable characters and didn't even like some of the others, as planned. Very much enjoyed the book, could it have been a bit shorter, I believe so. The way I looked at it was that it was 2 books in one. It would be wonderful to follow Meg's future as she was such an exceptional "person".

*3. Charlie -* A woman with nothing left to lose, down on her luck. She has a secret past and a fierce, enterprising spirit.

*What is The Calamity Club?*

Birdie's bookkeeping skills are needed to audit the orphanage's books. That's how she meets Meg. Then Birdie meets Charlie.

Together with a band of other discarded, "disreputable" women that society has thrown away, they come up with an *audacious plan to take control of their lives* - they open an underground brothel in the grand Tartt family mansion to make money.

The goal: save Meg from the orphanage system, save Birdie's family farm, and buy their freedom.

But in 1930s Mississippi, where a woman's freedom is fragile, hypocrisy is everywhere, and there is even a real 1928 Mississippi law that allowed sterilization of women deemed "feebleminded" or "promiscuous", even a small act of defiance can have dangerous, calamitous consequences.

*The Theme:*

_The New York Times_ called it "a heart-wrenching, often hilarious story of economic hardship, moral posturing, and the particular yearnings of childless women and motherless girls."