Review: The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel (print/audio)

Title: The Astronaut Wives Club

Author: Lily Koppel

Narrator: Orlagh Cassidy

Published: June 2013, Hachette Audio / Grand Central Publishing

Length: 7 hours 46 minutes / 302 pages

Source: Audio via Library / Print via Publisher

Summary:

As America’s Mercury
Seven astronauts were launched on death-defying missions, television
cameras focused on the brave smiles of their young wives. Overnight,
these women were transformed from military spouses into American
royalty. They had tea with Jackie Kennedy, appeared on the cover of Life magazine, and quickly grew into fashion icons.

Annie
Glenn, with her picture-perfect marriage, was the envy of the other
wives; JFK made it clear that platinum-blonde Rene Carpenter was his
favorite; and licensed pilot Trudy Cooper arrived with a secret that
needed to stay hidden from NASA. Together with the other wives they
formed the Astronaut Wives Club, providing one another with support and
friendship, coffee and cocktails.

As their celebrity rose-and as
divorce and tragedy began to touch their lives-the wives continued to
rally together, forming bonds that would withstand the test of time, and
they have stayed friends for over half a century. THE ASTRONAUT WIVES
CLUB tells the story of the women who stood beside some of the biggest
heroes in American history.

My thoughts: I was a huge fan of the mini-series The Astronauts Wives Club that was on TV a few years back and while I had every intention of reading this book before watching that, we all know how that goes. I finally had the time to read this and did a combination of print and audio.

I love that we get insight into the women behind the men. One of the reasons why I was drawn to this is because as a woman, I’m always fascinated with how these women’s lives are impacted by what their husbands’ do. These women were thrown into the spotlight and not necessarily by choice.

What I found to be quite interesting is that the women were held to high standards by NASA – they had to behave, look a certain way for photos – yet the men could basically run around and do whatever they wanted. It was a little hypocritical, yet I’m not really surprised. They had to keep their true opinions to themselves and whether they were stressed or not, and let’s face it, most times they probably were, they had to show the world all was good.

This was an enjoyable and enlightening book. It’s a nonfiction book that reads like fiction and gives a snapshot of life during the Space Race.

Audio thoughts: I both read and listened to this book and I thought Orlagh Cassidy did a good job with the audio. It was easy to move back and forth from print to audio and to me, that is most important – I didn’t feel like I was losing anything from the book if I jumped ahead in either format.