Women’s fiction books fall on a continuum with some having more similarity to genre romance while others read more like mainstream fiction. While a A Simple Thing is closer to mainstream fiction than romance, there is a background romance that adds color to the story and heightened my enjoyment of it.

Susannah had an alcoholic father and grew up in a “home where nothing seemed fair.” As the oldest, she assumed responsibility for her younger brother and sister when her father’s drinking caused him to abdicate it. She had escape fantasies starting at age thirteen, but that summer something happened that she has spent over twenty years trying to forget.

When her daughter Katie is born, she is unprepared for the depth of love she feels for this small being. She remembers thinking, “This will be the greatest love of my life forever.” But somehow her daughter has gotten off track. In fact the whole family seems fractured. Katie recently imbibed so much alcohol that she lapped into unconsciousness, and Susannah’s son has developed an unhealthy obsession with germs, cementing his label as a weirdo and target for bullies.

Susannah, who epitomizes the stereotypical “super mom”, has been like a hamster trapped on its wheel with her chauffeuring duties as she takes her kids to “soccer practice, dive team, flute lessons, drum lessons, basketball, Little League, Ecology Club and Young Zookeepers Club.” While other moms state that they are so busy that a home cooked meal is grilled cheese sandwiches, Susannah makes homemade pizza, biscuits, and soups from scratch plus volunteering for the PTA, Tilton Art Foundation, and homeless shelter. However, after realizing that no matter how hard she runs on the wheel, she is once more failing to keep her loved ones safe, she decides that her escape fantasy has merit and she moves to Sounder, a primitive community in the San Juan Islands off the Washington coast, leaving her husband behind.

Betty Pavalak moved to Sounder fifty-five years ago, hoping that it would satisfy her husband’s restlessness and unhappiness with his 9 to 5 job. The first six months were miserable – she couldn’t believe that she signed up for this type of life. But after six months she became pregnant, causing her to stay. She raised her son there, and he has continued to live there. The island took care of them, and Betty hopes it will do the same thing for Susannah. Without having met Susannah in person, she feels a profound connection to her.

While the family problems facing Susannah are not unique, they are compelling, although somewhat uncomfortable. Based on her background, her obsession with her children is understandable; still it felt unhealthy and damaging and that made it difficult to identify with her. I have to admit that even though Susannah’s story is more apropos in terms of lifestyle to me than Betty’s, I found Betty’s the most enlightening and intriguing.

While I can’t say that all women have multiple choices available to them now when they discover the clay feet of the men they married, Betty’s situation underlined how much has changed in the past sixty years. And while I knew it, reading it brought it home more, and made me see the decisions that the women in my own family have made in a less critical light. That reminder in itself sold me on the book.

Any book that illustrates women’s positive personal growth can’t help but win my admiration. When that is paired with the depth of characterization that is present here, then that makes it easy to recommend.