For those of you who didn’t live through the second wave of the feminist movement, for those of you for whom “Mrs. America” on Hulu was a new experience in history, and for those of you who think that #MeToo was an idea without a precedent, may I introduce you to THE WRONG KIND OF WOMAN by debut novelist Sarah McCraw Crow?

There was a time in the United States when women had few rights. When you got married, you were actually your husband’s property (yes, that’s how slavery works). When you tried to get a credit card, a bank account, a car loan or a mortgage, well…you couldn’t. You had to have a co-signer, usually of the male persuasion. No matter your education, race, religion or family’s monetary status, there was no other way of saying it: Without being hitched to a man, in the eyes of the law, you were lower than a liability. You didn’t exist. So this is the world in which Virginia, a young, confused, surprised widow, finds herself during Christmastime 1970.

"...an easy-to-digest tale of one woman’s march towards personal freedom.... THE WRONG KIND OF WOMAN demonstrates that no one should be underestimated or unrepresented when it comes to making a world that works for everyone."

Virginia’s husband, Oliver, drops dead while hanging Christmas lights on their simple home. Oliver was a professor at the men’s-only Clarendon College, a small New England staple. They have a child, Rebecca, who witnesses her father’s demise. Close friends and neighbors are helpful, but the following year brings Virginia experiences that she never could have anticipated or prepared for.

Serving on the Clarendon faculty with Oliver are four women, unmarried professors, who are so liberated and outspoken on all things feminist that they are dubbed “the Gang of Four” by their male counterparts who are less than excited about the way they try to pull Clarendon into the future they see, where women live in equality with men. The women’s movement is ready to bust into this bubble of male superiority, but Virginia has spent the years with Oliver agreeing with his anger and obfuscation with these women and their beliefs.

As the rest of the world explodes in a war of words and angry protests, the little town around Clarendon College acts as if it always will be exempt from this rough change. However, as Virginia discovers, her life without her spouse brings her to some incredible recognitions, particularly the kinship she feels deep down with these brave, bold women working so hard personally and politically for true change. But can her family withstand the changes in and around her?

THE WRONG KIND OF WOMAN is an easy-to-digest tale of one woman’s march towards personal freedom. Set against the backdrop of the turbulent ’70s, the novel sweeps us up into a frenzy that we can recognize --- women are still fighting a good fight, and Virginia and her contemporaries carve out new paths in small places, changes that set a blaze that fired across the contemporary American landscape.

I am a sucker for women’s movement stories, from any age, and this book got me. Of course, it’s not woke regarding Black lives or indigenous peoples’ rights. But if you can see past the mostly white cast of characters, you will enjoy driving through archaic principles with Virginia and the Gang of Four. Through Rebecca, we get a sense of how the acts of the older generation so intensely affect the next one. The friendships that form with Virginia among stronger, more woke women is a bond that we all can recognize and admire.

In this day and age of utter contempt for new ideas and equality in all its forms, THE WRONG KIND OF WOMAN demonstrates that no one should be underestimated or unrepresented when it comes to making a world that works for everyone. It’s a strong, strident message delivered in a valentine of a book that is easy to read and enjoy, but with enough gentle grit and determination to keep you thinking about Virginia and the Gang of Four long after the last page is read.