The Calamity Club

by Kathryn Stockett

The multi-million copy selling author of The Help returns with a bold, big-hearted novel about a group of unbreakable women, fighting for what’s rightfully theirs—and the power of friendship to change everything.

In 1933 Oxford, Mississippi, Prohibition is on the wane, and the Great Depression is tightening its grip. Poor and rich folks alike have fallen on hard times, even as the old social order remains. For women on the margins, the options are few and the price of dignity and self-determination is unbearably high.

Eleven-year-old Meg, one of the unadoptable “big girls” at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed. Birdie, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford on a mission to ask her social-climbing sister to help the struggling family she’s left behind. And Charlie is a woman with a past, running low on luck but driven by fire, fury, and grit. When their fates converge, they come up with an audacious plan to take back control of their lives. Together, they form an unlikely sisterhood—but in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife, women’s freedom is fragile, and making an enemy can have dire consequences, will the price they pay for their outrageous risk-taking be too high?

The Calamity Club will make you laugh, cry, and cheer—an epic testament to resilience, friendship, and the fierce, funny women who know that calamity can be the spark of new beginnings. This is Kathryn Stockett at her most confident, heartfelt, and hilarious—the triumphant return of one of the most beloved storytellers of our time.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Book Club, Historical, Literary Fiction, Adult Fiction

640 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 5, 2026

About the author

Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and creative writing, she moved to New York City, where she worked in magazine publishing for nine years. She currently lives in Mississippi and New York City.

Reviews

[Canadian Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This calamity club is born out of the perfect storm. It consists of women who are brought together by circumstance. In this case the times - it's 1933 and the shock waves of the depression are still reverberating. Many are poor and have not recovered; families that are broken. Children being dropped off at an orphanage because they can't care for them and one particular orphanage is run by a lunatic.
To make ends meet, a club is born. It is made up of courageous and strong women: Birdie, Charlie and a few others who support these women who do what is necessary when the others are too weak. It’s about getting a child back who should never have been put into an orphanage and ensuring her safety. It’s not always clean work- some of its downright inappropriate and illegal! But sometimes you gotta to do what you gotta do to save a child; a home; a family.

Themes of abandonment, family, friendship, alcoholism, depression, discrimination against women -eugenics- a nasty period in American history.
It was a little long -not sure it needed to be- this is my only criticism to this great story.

Stockett, I’m glad you took your power back after receiving such a backlash over The Help. This was well worth the wait. Do check out the Oprah podcast with Stockett.
4.5⭐️

[emilybookedup · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 big beautiful stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ omg this book was everything!! i was so desperate for a 5-star read and so many of you recommended this and you were right—worth the hype!

*highly recommend listening to this on audio. the dual POV narration brought the story and characters’ personalities to life SO well. it’s hefty (28 hours 😳) but honestly flew by!

every time i stopped reading it, i was craving to get back to the story and characters. now since finishing, i’ve been thinking of it nonstop. i miss them 🥹🥹🥹 Birdie and Meg were two of the best main characters ever—so much personality! loved all the secondary characters too… Flossy, Frances, Tom, Esmeralda, the other girls 💖

i went into this book blind and recommend you do too. the synopsis doesn’t give much away anyways and i like that bc this book is NOT what you think it will be in 100 ways 🤣

but, i will say this book is for people who love:
- character driven stories (heavier on character evolution but still has a lot of plot)
- historical fiction not centered around a war
- strong female characters
- learning about our nations history and how it’s treated women and children specifically (i learned SO much… 😭)
- characters with a lot of personality
- plots that keep you guessing
- dual narration / multiple POVs and characters
- emo books with satisfying endings

some people are critical of it bc they say the first and second halves (pt 1 v 2) feel like totally different books and honestly i agree, however that’s why i loved it so much. this book and plot kept me guessing and let’s just say the second half was VERY entertaining lol! i was wondering how the author would keep us invested for 650 pages and she sure delivered!

if i had 1 critique, it’s that i wanted an epilogue. i wanna see where all my girls ended up!!!!!! but honestly maybe that would have made everything feel a bit too perfectly wrapped up which is low key a pet peeve of mine. i just wanted a liiiiittle bit more of the final ending for Meg and Birdie/Frances.

TLDR: cannot recommend it enough!!! it’s lengthy but flies by—you’ll fall in love with these characters and setting! 💙💙💙

[♥︎ Heather ⚔ (Semi-Hiatus-attempting return) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Digital ARC provided via NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.

Enjoyable, but dragged at times for me.

I picked up The Calamity Club because the premise sounded really appealing: set in 1933 Oxford, Mississippi during the Great Depression, it follows a group of very different women, including a tough young orphan girl named Meg, who form an unlikely sisterhood and team up to take back some control over their lives.

The story has a lot going for it. The friendships that develop feel warm and genuine, with plenty of humor mixed in with the harder moments of poverty, abandonment, and limited options for women at that time. Stockett brings the era to life with vivid details about the orphanage, small-town

Southern life, and the daily struggles everyone faced. I especially liked Meg’s fierce spirit and how the “Calamity Club” idea brings these characters together in unexpected ways. There were parts that made me laugh out loud and others that tugged at the heartstrings.

That said, at around 600 pages, the pacing dragged in the middle for me. A few sections felt repetitive, and some of the plot resolutions wrapped up a little too conveniently. I also wanted a bit more emotional depth from one or two of the supporting characters.

Overall, it’s a solid, entertaining read about resilience and female friendship, but it didn’t quite keep me fully hooked the whole way through.

If you enjoy big-hearted historical novels about strong women banding together during tough times, this one is worth a read- just be prepared for a slower middle section.

✴︎a˚｡⋆ Connect with me on Instagram ˗ˏˋ★‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
1933, Oxford Mississippi. Bearing the steamy heat and the burdens of the post depression, burdens that fall on them because life happens, we meet a cast of fully realized characters, the faces of strength and resilience in spite of it all. The story unfolds with alternating narratives of two of the main characters who took me into their hearts and souls from the minute I met them. Bright, precocious and funny, eleven year old Meg is an orphan at The Lafayette County Orphan Asylum. Her story of abandonment at nine, the physical and emotional abuse she suffers at the hands of the vile director of the orphanage was chilling. A ray of hope when her path crosses Birdie a smart, defiant, kind and also funny young woman trying to save her mamma and meemaw from dire circumstances and then her sister and her sister’s mother in law.

A winding plot with a lot of other characters covering multiple themes - the injustice and violation of sterilization against women deemed to be immoral and feeble minded, the horrible treatment of orphans, adultery, the stigma of homosexuality, alcoholism, the ties than bind families . I wanted to give this 5 stars since Kathryn Stockett does such an extraordinary job with characterization and I felt I knew all of these characters. However, I have to admit that this 650 + page book could have used some editing . One of the story threads at about the halfway point and beyond was just too drawn out. Having said that, there was not a time that I didn’t want to pick it up to know what happens to Meg and Birdie and others. Fifteen years after her first novel The Help, I found it worth the wait in spite of the drawn out middle .

I received a copy of this book from Spiegal and Grau through Edelweiss.

[Teres · Rating 4 out of 5]

At 600+ pages, The Calamity Club is a commitment. But, boy, was I sad when it came to an end.

In this long-awaited follow-up to The Help, Kathryn Stockett plunges us into the sweltering Mississippi Delta of 1933.

The novel follows a plucky 11-year-old orphan and a resourceful spinster doing whatever it takes to survive the Great Depression.

Both yearn for family and find it in unexpected places: one devises an ingenious plan to open a dance club (read: underground brothel), while the other proves resilient even under the most trying circumstances.

Funnier than you'd expect from a book that touches on forced sterilization, baby trafficking, and the casual cruelty of "good Christian women," you can bet The Calamity Club will get optioned for the screen.

And like The Help, the novel will no doubt grace many a book club reading list for years to come.

[Di]

I am so sorry that I have finished this book. It is over 600 pages long and I wish it would never end. It is set in the Deep South, Oxford, Mississippi, in 1933. Times are very hard during the Great Depression.

The story has three main characters. Birdie is the older and plainer of the two sisters. She travels to visit her younger ( prettier, important fact) sister to ask for money to help the family. Meg is an 11 year old girl wasting away and being mistreated in an orphanage. Charlie is Meg’s mother who was forced to abandon Meg because of the harsh and brutal laws of the era.

There are two storylines which are separate but connected.

The 1930s were a terrible decade. The depression created desperate situations for many people. Prohibition had not been repealed, there were no jobs, people were willing to resort to anything to make enough to support themselves and their families. And, life was very much different for women.

Besides the three main characters, there are many interesting and well developed personalities present. The ingenuity, the strength, the resilience that people demonstrated was amazing. Conversely, there were also mean characters (bordering on evil) to balance out the cast.

I don’t have the words or ability to describe how much I enjoyed this book. It is funny, it is sad, it is interesting, it is intense. It’s one of the longest books I’ve read in many years but it held my attention the whole time. It has been 17 years since the author released her first book, The Help. Well worth the wait. I hope we don’t have to wait as long for the next masterpiece.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the Advance Readers Copy.

[ଘRory (Back!Dental School got me good)]

It is not unlikely that I do not like unlikely sisterhood.

[JanB · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

It’s 1933 in Oxford Mississippi. Narrated by two characters, Birdie and Meg, the main cast of characters include:

- Meg, an 11 year old girl who lives in an orphanage and considered one of the unadoptable big girls. She’s treated badly but works hard to maintain her bright spirit. I loved her and her story.
- Birdie, considered an “old maid” at 24, arrives in Oxford to ask her sister, Frannie, who married into a wealthy family, for money so she and her mother can pay their taxes and keep their family home. Birdie’s observations about life and her humor were a delight.
- Frannie is a difficult character to like, but as Birdie discovers, her life is far from as it appears on the surface, and things are about to implode
- Mrs Tart, Frannie’s widowed MIL, who has lived a genteel life but will soon need to confront the truth and find a way to survive tough times
- Charlie, a woman down on her luck but whose one mission to find her daughter is her driving force

It’s the Depression, times are tough for everyone, but especially tough for women who are alone in the world. There was no safety net for them, no where to turn. Instead they must rely on their grit and determination to do what it takes, or lose everything.

I loved the theme of strong resilient women even if I couldn’t get on board with HOW they survived tough times.

The author excels at writing well-developed characters, ones you care about deeply. She doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects in our history’s past: the abysmal treatment of orphans, homosexuality, forced sterilization, women’s rights, alcoholism, sex workers, and more.

In fact, I think less is more, and in my view the author perhaps tried to do too much for one book.

And the length of this book! At 656 pages, 250 pages could be cut and the book made better by it. Especially in the beginning, the pages and pages and pages of unnecessary detailed dialogue made it a slog and I considered dnf’ing.

When the plot took a surprising turn around 60%, new characters were introduced and way too much time was spent describing it all in sordid detail.

There’s a great book somewhere among all those pages. Few books are worthy of this length and this isn’t one of them. It was in desperate need of an editor.

For that reason alone I’m giving it 3.5 stars, which, by the way, means I liked it, but there were issues that prevented me from granting it a full 4 stars.

I had this book on my kindle and the audio, and found I much preferred the audio. When I tried to read it I had to fight the urge to skim because I was bored. January LaVoy is one of my very favorite narrators and she excelled, as usual. Her narration brought Birdie to life, and it helped that I could do other things as I listened. Plus I listened at x1.5 - 1.75, depending on which character was narrating, which helped me get through this 29 hour audio.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Whew!!!
Finally finished this very long but entertaining novel.
Historical fiction… Oxford, Mississippi 1933
This was a very entertaining read with fantastic women characters.
If they make a movie with this one, as they did The Help..it will be very good!
It’s witty, bold, compassionate and at times heartbreaking.
The power of smart and hardworking women and what they can accomplish together is shown here, and I could picture these characters vividly!

[Krickette · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has almost been two decades since I first read The Help written by Kathryn Stockett and fell in love with her ability to capture my heart with her magical storytelling skills. It was a book I absolutely adored! So… when I received an ARC-kindle version of her second novel, The Calamity Club (thank you so much NetGalley) I was completely over the moon!🌙

Like her debut novel, The Calamity Club shows off Kathryn Stockett’s conversational writing style which allows her words to be the threads that weave a story of survival, loyalty, heartbreak, friendship, resilience and love.

The Calamity Club is a historical fiction novel set in the heart of Mississippi in the early 1930’s and follows several very strong and “against all odds” female characters. These characters are complicated, oozing with depth, courage and determination.

Knee deep in the mucky-ness of the Great Depression we are introduced to these female stand outs:

🌸Birdie (an upfront, tell it like it is, resourceful and deeply real 24 year old unwed woman) FAV!
🌺Meg (an ever-so-clever, sassy as they come, smart and wise beyond her years 11 year old orphan) FAV!
🌸Francis (Birdie’s social ladder climbing, self centered and conceited sister who is married to a man who sleeps in his own room)
And last but not least ….
🌺Mrs. Tartt (a wise, witty, and quite sophisticated-but tender hearted- older widowed woman (also mother-in-law to Francis)).
….Later, in the second half of this sorted story, additional female characters come into play and help keep the rhythm of the story moving (Charlie and Flossy are at the top, with several others to follow).

Told from two POVS and alternating storylines, this story and the collision of circumstances will surprise you (the twists.. and character development are shocking).

While this story was deeply layered, and filled with remarkable characters, hardship, social judgements, and an unlikely sisterhood, it did prove to be quite wordy at times with long enough chapters 😬and details that could have been fine tuned. Although long-I did continue on🤪(an overall story that was well over 650 pages) and when I finally read the last page, I was happy that I read this perfectly imperfect novel.

This book was filled with all the things, yes verbose, but well worth the read. A part of history I feel gets a bit overlooked and an era that required much resilience, candor and commitment in order to land on your feet! Great second book for Kathryn Stockett! 4⭐️s.

I want to thank NetGalley and publishers for this eARC in exchange for my honest thoughts and review.

[Ellery Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well worth the wait. This was a long book, but it never felt long. I loved the characters and felt very anxious for all of them. Would make such a powerful book club read because there are so many timeless topics included such as female empowerment, racism, conversion therapy, prohibition, sex workers, adoption, and poverty. I was fully immersed by the woman trying to navigate such a omcplex and divided southern landscape.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have no idea how this book has like all 5s across the board LOL

First off, it's way too long. It has three strong plot lines (on top of all the random side quests) that barely interact that it really should have just been like three independent books. (Family dealing with financial stresses in the great depression, the brothel, the orphanage.)

Second off, you can majorly tell it was written by the same lady who wrote The Help. And I don't mean that in a flattering way. Kathryn is back at it with the phonetic dialogue that seems to be making a charicature of the time and our main character gives major white savior vibes. She spends the whole book saving the day with a plucky can do attitude on the backs of others while still maintaining her naiveté from the back of her high horse.

Third off, basically every adult character sucks. I know they were a product of the era, but the "spoiled rich women" trope with no idea of money got tiresome.

I feel like the premise of the book had a ton of potential, but really got lost in the 650 pages of sauce.

All of that being said, Meg is an absolute gem and I feel like I might have liked this story a lot more if i felt like it had put more focus on Meg, the orphanage, or her mom's backstory.

Also, ****spoiler*****


our main character "hero" opening a brothel as basically a madam while calling prostitution a "deranged business that she hates" and using the other women to make money to save herself and her family while  she herself maintains her virtue and her church-goer attitude does not give female empowerment energy to me 😂

P s. Author's note highlights additional content about a harrowing time for women in American history that could have been included in the story to give it more depth.

[Sharon_🌺 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kathryn Stockett has done it again!
I hope we don’t have as long a wait (as between The Help and The Calamity Club), for her next novel.

Waiting is so hard to do!🤭

🌺 Read what you love! 🌺

[L A · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a Southern book!!
"In 1933 Oxford, Mississippi, Prohibition is on the wane, and the Great Depression is tightening its grip. Poor and rich folks alike have fallen on hard times, even as the old social order remains. For women on the margins, the options are few and the price of dignity and self-determination is unbearably high."
"Eleven-year-old Meg, one of the unadoptable “big girls” at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed. Birdie, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford on a mission to ask her social-climbing sister to help the struggling family she’s left behind."
"If you give a girl a taste of fresh air and then take it away, she will grow fierce and wild to get that fresh air back again."
Each character has faced trials and tribulations in some form. The book brings out the resilience in people when they have had their comfortable way of life stripped away due to the Great Depression. Even the wealthy had to find new ways to survive. All their lives collide in one of the most unforgettable future classic novels. There are so many wonderful characters that are full fledged and believable. You must listen to the audio to fully enjoy their Southern accent...my accent....
I laughed aloud at their friendships. I worried about their sacrifices. I cringed over their decisions. I was embarrassed for their predicament, but all in all their courageousness overrides everything.
It is long.. On audible it is 28 hours and 44 minutes, but I sped it up. The narrators Jenna Lamia and January LaVoy did a great job with the accents and this is what makes this book.
I loved The Help and am so glad this one was released. There are some characters you love to hate, such as Garnett, the director of the Lafayette Co Orphan Asylum. She is an eyesore on the system for children like Meg that have no other choice but to live there after her mother Charlie abandoned her. When Charlie comes back into the story, she has quite the evidence of a corrupt system. Mrs. Tartt, I loved her character, but she is naive to the core. Then there is Frances who not only is naive, but ignorant and you can see why her sister Birdie wanted to smack her. Birdie and Meg are the ultimate bond and support for this fierce and funny novel.
Thank you NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for this amazing book in exchange for my honest review.

[Tini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable women well worth the wait.

4.5 stars rounded up.

After fifteen years away from publishing fiction, Kathryn Stockett returns with The Calamity Club - and somehow manages the near-impossible task of following up a phenomenon like The Help with something equally ambitious, sprawling, and emotionally satisfying.

Set in Oxford, Mississippi during the Great Depression, the novel follows two unforgettable protagonists: twenty-four-year-old Birdina "Birdie" Calhoun, outspoken and perpetually underestimated, and eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur, one of the "big girls" at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum after being abandoned by her mother. Their lives collide in ways both expected and surprising, and from there the story unfolds into a sweeping portrait of women surviving, scheming, sacrificing, and refusing to be broken by the circumstances around them.

What makes this novel work so well are the women at its center. It's not just Birdie and Meg - though both are absolute standouts - but the sheer richness of the ensemble cast surrounding them. The women here emerge fully realized in all their complexity: formidable, messy, resilient, selfish, brave, hypocritical, compassionate. Some are easy to root for, others decidedly less so (I'm looking at you, Francis), but together they carry the novel entirely. Most of the men, meanwhile, remain in the background, which feels very intentional in a story so deeply concerned with women's lives, limitations, and survival.

At over 640 pages, the novel probably could have been tightened in places, and yet, I rarely minded lingering longer than necessary. And there is a lot packed into these pages: Stockett tackles heavy topics such as poverty, addiction, sex work, bodily autonomy, class, shame, and the quiet determination of women trapped by circumstance. In less capable hands, this easily could have tipped into melodrama or soap opera territory. Instead, Birdie's sharpness and Meg's fierce resilience keep the story grounded and emotionally honest throughout.

Is the plot entirely unpredictable? Not really; many of the twists feel less shocking than inevitable. But the real pleasure here is spending time with these characters and this vividly realized world.

Immersive, absorbing, often funny, heartbreaking, and deeply human, this is exactly the kind of big, character-driven storytelling I love getting lost in. While The Calamity Club may not be perfect, its unforgettable characters, enormous heart, and deeply felt emotional core make it an immensely rewarding read. A triumphant return for Kathryn Stockett - and well worth the wait.

Many thanks to Spiegel & Grau for providing me with an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

"The Calamity Club" was published on May 5, 2026, and is available now.

[Chrisann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have been waiting for this author’s second book ever since I closed The Help about two decades ago. That book is one of my all-time favorites, and Skeeter is my most favorite book character of all time. So I was excited to get an early copy of this. Sadly, I do not recommend this book. I wish I could get all the hours I spent reading this back. I was really interested from the beginning and it wasn’t slow…until about the last 1/3. The book took a COMPLETELY unnecessary turn that was really unfortunate. At that point, in a nearly 700-page book, I wanted to see what happened. I knew there was next to no chance of redemption, but I finished it anyways. Ugh. I understand that these things likely happened because people were desperate, but…

***mild spoiler***

I am not typically a spoiler type of person, but I wish I would’ve known these ladies were going to open a brothel to save themselves. It was really disgusting and made for an unpleasant read. I just cannot recommend this. I’m sad I spent time reading this. It was way too long as well.

[Alannajoanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book! The first half is excellent - rich writing, engaging story, and endearing, quirky characters. I was particularly drawn in by Meg’s character. But about halfway the book takes a turn. A new set of characters and situations are introduced; they feel over-the-top and unrealistic to the characters and story that was already built. The end solution to the two big problems is unbelievable and stretched. I was so disappointed and frustrated. The second half feels like a waste of such a good beginning.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best audiobook I’ve ever listened to. There are no words for how special, unique, heartbreaking, and freaking funny this book is. I fell in love with every single character, except for a couple – IYKYK. I wanna be best friends with Flossie please. 😭😭😭

[Marialyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine story but the length!!!

It's 1933 in Mississippi, and life has definitely down turned for the rich as well as the poor. Trying to scrape together money falls onto the shoulders of all, but especially Birdie who is trying to save not only her family home but that of her sister and lovely mother in law Mrs. Tartt. There is Birdie's entitled sister Franny, who will drive one insane with her careless ways and total escapist mind set. Hard to believe she and Birdie were sisters! She's in for a big problem when her husband Rory up and disappears with the family's portable wealth. Poor Rory also carries a secret.

Then there is Charlie, a down on her luck lady, but a woman who has true grit and wants nothing more than getting her daughter back. Teaming up with Birdie they come up with an audacious plan to save themselves.

Meg is the child in the middle. She is an older girl in an orphanage, who longs to be adopted and always dreams her mother will come back to claim her.

The characters are well developed by the author that one feels you could reach out and touch them. We have the good ones, the bad ones, and the groups that many thought were bad but really are not.

This was a time with depression looming, that women needed to use their own self reliance in order to survive. It was a time of struggle, where good times were a thing of the past, where one worried where the next meal was coming from.

I really enjoyed the story although the length was a bit drawn out for Kathryn Stockett needed to explain every character and event is full detail. I alternated between my kindle and audible to read this story.

Our modern views certainly can look at that time period with a respect for all who labored and succeeded to survive in a harsh environment that required them to be creative, be understanding, and most of all be human in their treatment of one another.

"Once in khaki suits, ah, gee, we looked swell
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell
And I was the kid with the drum

Oh, say, don't you remember? They called me 'Al'
It was 'Al' all the time
Say, don't you remember? I'm your pal
Buddy, can you spare a dime?"

[Tracy Greer-Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Calamity Club is a motley crew of characters that work well. This book is receiving a lot of praise and it is well deserved. Therefore, I am not going to give this a synopsis because there are so many outstanding reviews posted.

More so my personal thoughts….
Stockett made us !!! wait 17 years for this book, following her smash hit, The Help. This was a dual experience for me. I physically read and listened to the audio in tandem. The audio is unbelievably good. Those narrators were next level and brought the book alive.

I can honestly say this is the first time I have read a book and thought… “I think this is a two book book?!?!
What I mean is, I think there was two stories that worked wonderfully, but each could have been a stand alone.

For example, when Flossie entered the picture, I thought I had entered another story. And I so adored Flossie! It just seemed this was so out of place within the main part of the book.

Nevertheless, the characters are sublime. I laughed, I was emotional, and I never regretted my time. I cannot wait for the movie, because there will be one.

4 stars ⭐️ book
5 stars audio 🎧
4.5 stars final rating

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teetering between 4.5 and 5 stars. Probably 30
pages too long, but still an incredible and immersive novel. Literally felt like I was in Oxford, MS in 1933. World building, progressive, and a deep read.

[Meagan (Meagansbookclub) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full review to come which will be marked as “spoiler,” but for a short thought: I found this book needing a huge edit in plot development. So much was repetitive or long winded or unnecessary. The story, I didn’t mind. But after a while, it all felt contrived.

And yes- I read with a critical eye so if you’re shocked by my not-five-star-review, I can’t be easily swayed just because it’s the current hype book. I’m not a bandwagon reader.

[Lisa Burgos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This historical novel is both engaging and horrifying as it reveals the cruel beliefs in Mississippi's past, and explains the rigid mind-set of contemporary politics & culture. However, throughout history, the theme of women helping other women gave the story conflict, suspense, and lots of humor.

[SusanTalksBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

*** 4/8/26 *** THANK YOU NetGalley for a pre-release ARC of The Calamity Club, Kathryn Stockett's first novel since The Help. A lot of reviews summarize the book, so I will skip that, and jump to thoughts on this 640-page (Kindle version) novel.

I absolutely fell in love with Birdie, the 24-year old "old maid" from the Mississippi Delta who opens the novel, and Meg, the 11-year-old girl currently in an orphanage. Both of these women are smart (or should I say "exceptional learners"), resourceful, independently minded, and funny, and their characters and storylines during the first 50% of the book made me reclaim my lifelong love of reading that has fallen away some in recent years. Thank you, Kathryn Stockett, for creating them!

The first 50% of the book sets up a scenario that could easily have been a "whole book," but the second half of the book introduces a greatly expanded plot with several new storylines and additional characters. I, like some other reviewers, felt this half of the book could have been edited down some. There are redundant messages in the storylines, and it began to feel a little too much writing for too little plot development. I also didn't love the characters in the second half quite as much as Birdie and Meg in the first half (they are also in the second half). Yet I, like probably most readers, ALSO raced through it just to see how Stockett would resolve the storylines, and boy, did she resolve them! Readers definitely get that much-craved bow to wrap things up.

Overall, I felt this was a highly readable and enjoyable novel with important messages about historical practices of treating women who happen to be single or rub some right wing self-righteous twats the wrong way, beliefs about gay people, black people, children's rights and care standards, gender pay standards, women supporting each other, and women going for their goals no matter the risks. I highly anticipate this becoming a bestseller and a movie. I just wish there had been a little slimming down of a few storylines. 4.5 stars.

*** 4/4/26 *** Just got approved by NetGalley to review this depression-era, female-centric historical fiction by the author of The Help! Kathryn Stockett's sophomore effort is a long one, which is not my forte, but I'm hoping the story, characters, and writing quality will make this a joy to read! Pub date May 5, 2026, so coming soon, and we can only hope to hear news of a movie option this year if it is as good as I expect it will be. Review coming soon!

[Dem · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett got off to a cracking start. The author knows how to hook the reader and for the first hundred pages or so I was happily along for the ride convinced I was in for another 5 star read.

Unfortunately somewhere along the way the novel seems to develop an aversion to arriving at its destination. What began as an engaging story gradually became long and drawn out and I felt myself thinking this novel could have been 250 pages shorter without losing much of its impact.

The characters remained somewhat interesting although many of their choices needed suspending disbelief. By the time I reached the conclusion I wasn't entirely convinced by how everything was resolved. After such a lengthy journey I wanted an ending that felt inevitable, instead it felt like the author waving me towards the exit and assuring me everything would make sense if I didn't think too hard about it.

An easy summer read but not one for my favourite shelf.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up from the library and was shocked to see that it was 630 pages. Not that I have anything against longer books, but I wasn't ready for that kind of commitment right now. However, since my alternative was to turn it back in and go to the end of the waiting list, which is currently at 149, I decided to go ahead.

I needn't have feared, it is full of action, humor and great characters and reads quickly. The story is told from 2 povs, that of Birdie, a take charge, caring young woman, who goes to stay with her sister in Oxford, MS. It is the Depression and she needs a loan from her well off sister and brother-in-law to keep her family home from foreclosure from back taxes. What she finds there is alarming and surprising.

The other narrator is Meg, an 11 year old in a local orphanage, and what Birdie finds there when she volunteers to help with the bookkeeping is even more alarming. Meg is a "smart cookie", trying to survive harsh and unfair treatment from the director. Her voice is what makes this book special.

This book has twists and turns and is entertaining from start to finish. I'm glad I decided to tackle it instead of waiting. If there is a Hollywood producer out there wanting to make a film of this one (and I'm betting there is), then it will be just as good as The Help was years ago. Everyone gets what's coming to them, good and bad. I'm also betting that if they find the right child to play Meg, she will win an Oscar.

Now I'll get this back to the library for whoever is next on that long waiting list.

[Jill · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoyed The Help, so was pleasantly surprised when I opened my Libby app a couple weeks ago to see that the newly released Calamity Club had just been added to my local library with no wait! Score! At first I thought I misread the audiobook time ("approx 29 hours"?!)... but no. Twenty. Nine. Hours.

To clarify, I have no problem with big books. I like big books, and I cannot lie. You other brothers can't deny.

The Calamity Club absolutely, positively did not need to be 29 hours/600+ pages. The word "bloated" seems to fit best. As many other reviewers have already mentioned, there are pages and pages of unnecessary dialogue and descriptions.

For example, a conversation between two characters might go something like:

"Sister, you cannot spend any money."
"But I want to buy a new dress."
"We do not have money for you to buy a new dress."
"Okay, I'll get my hair done."
"You cannot get your hair done, we have no money."
"I'll go to the store to buy things."
"We have no money. Please do not go to the store."
"But the store has things, and I like things. I will go to the store."
"The store requires money, and we have no money."
"I guess I can go to the store later."
"No, the store will still require money later. Do not go to the store."
"How about when I go to the store, I take you with me. That will be fun!"
"We cannot go to the store, we do not have money."
"There must be a way for me to spend money, because I like spending money."
"But we cannot spend money, because we do not have money."


The story started strong (even if some of the characters were a little too "on-the-nose"), but completely lost its way. Whereas The Help kept the primary focus on slavery, CC decided to put allllllll the issues into this book: slavery, abortion, gay conversion therapy, alcoholism, forced sterilization, child abuse, religious abuse, prostitution, and suicide, to name a few. It just dissolved into a hot, unbelievable, unreadable mess - like a 29-hour "I Love Lucy" episode.

I didn't care about any of the characters, except Meg (and that was due primarily to the actress who read her part). The "twists and turns" were not surprising or interesting, and by the end (which was abrupt and unbelievable, even for a fictional story), I was listening at 2x speed, just to get it over with.

[Renée | apuzzledbooklover · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s easy to say that this was probably my most anticipated book of the year. And did it live up to my high expectations? For the most part.

I loved the first 60% or so. I was fully invested. I especially enjoyed the character development. Birdie’s humor and compassion really made me love her. Meg, I can’t even fully describe how I felt about her and rooted for her. This is a character-driven book that worked for me in so many ways.

The author also creates characters you kind of love to hate. Some I despised. The time period and circumstances of the era also play a huge role in the story. It’s set in the early 1930s, Mississippi. Tough financial times for so many.

There’s a point in the book where a certain plot-line develops and this is where the story lagged for me. I thought that it meandered unnecessarily. And I kept wishing it would return to another part, and I wanted to know more about that section than the one I was in. At a whopping 640 pages, I think there were some missed opportunities here. And a few loose ends. It could’ve been tightened up considerably, in my opinion, and been stronger for it.

But does that mean that I didn’t enjoy this book? It does not. It has so many elements that I really enjoyed! And I really loved so much of the ending, although it did feel a bit rushed. I would still definitely recommend this one.

[Rating - 4.25 ⭐️]

[Thanks to the publisher, Spiegel and Grau and NetGalley for the advance electronic copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.]

CA | Some cursing and sexually related content. Fade to black.

[Kristina Pauls (ARC Reviewer) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett (5 stars)

Kathryn has done it again, I don't know how to put into words how well this book is written.

Set in Mississippi during the Great Depression, this story follows women like Meg, Birdie, and Charlie as they try to survive and take control of their lives in a time when women had very few options.

I connected with Meg and Birdie right away, especially once their paths crossed, and I grew to love characters like Mrs. Tartt as the story went on. This book is very character-driven, and I felt emotionally invested pretty early on.

What I didn't expect was how much of the story would center around the realities women faced trying to survive. A large part of the book focuses on women turning to prostitution because they had no other options, while that's difficult to read, it never felt like it was being glorified. Birdie really acts as the moral center of the story. She doesn't agree with it, but she understands why it's happening, and that keeps everything grounded.

The book does a really good job showing the lack of freedom women had during that time. It covers so many different situations: single women, childless women, women who wanted careers, women being treated as property, and even laws that limited their ability to work at the same time their husbands had a job. There are also clear double standards in how women are treated and judged compared to men, with an overall theme of women's lack of freedoms.

The story itself comes to a satisfying ending, but the authors note at the end really stuck with me. Knowing that much of this was based on real historical accounts added a heaviness that made everything feel even more real.

It also really puts into perspective the freedoms women have today, while at the same time making you think about some of those differences in how men and women are treated still exist. We've come a long way, but it's clear we're not all the way there yet.

Absolutely astounding book. Highly recommend.

PUBLISH DATE: May 5, 2026
BOOK TITLE: The Calamity Club
AUTHOR: Kathryn Stockett
PUBLISHER: Spiegel & Grau
FORMAT: ebook
PAGES: 640
I received a complimentary digital ARC [Advanced Readers Copy] of this book via NetGalley. Thank you to the Publisher and the Author for the opportunity to read and review this title prior to publication. As always, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Goodreads profile: Kristina Pauls (ARC Reviewer)

[Kate (k8tsreads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

YES Kathryn Stockett!! This was so worth waiting like 15 years for.

So cozy yet meaningful at the same time. I can’t describe the vibes of Stockett’s stories, but I love the pacing and the historical detail. Her books are ones I love to live in, and I know that I will re-read this one someday. The entire cast was such a delight.

Perhaps just a ~tad~ too long, but otherwise a total home run. And Meg, for one, may be one of my favorite narrators of all time. She was such a hoot.