A Review of Things A Bright Girl Can Do

Things a Bright Girl Can Do is a book by Sally Nicholls. Evelyn Collis, May Thornton and Nell Swancott are three very different girls who all get caught up in the women's suffrage movement in some way. However, the Great War looms in the 1910's, and women find themselves working jobs that used to be the sole realm of men. Between working, studying, peace movements and romance, campaigning for the vote falls by the wayside.

The women's suffrage movement didn't take up as much of this book as I thought - more of it deals with the First World War and the effects it had on women's rights and families in Britain. It's still a very good look at the lives of young women in the mid-1910's.

Evelyn is rich and wants to go to university. She's also ignorant of world events, a lot of which comes from her being forbidden from reading papers. Her interest in the women's suffrage movement seems to come more from a place of annoying her parents. However, she ends up the one most involved with the Suffragettes over the course of the story, actually going to jail and through hunger strike. May means well, but she is brash and speaks without thinking. Being raised by her mother in a house of modern ideals and non-violent activism, her views are different from others of her time. This contrasts and makes her clash with Nell, a working class girl, who does what she must to keep her family alive. It's also nice to see positive relationships between men and women in a book about women's suffrage.

This book looks at the intersection between the suffrage movement and class, and points out that at the time women were fighting, not even men's suffrage was universal. It also looks at LBGT issues, but not linked so much into the movement. May and Nell begin a relationship, and Nell could be trans, although they lack the vocabulary to describe it properly. This does lead to what we'd consider misgendering and deadnaming with a minor character.

Historical fiction can sometimes seem slow, by necessity, as it required so many details. However, the chapters here are short, and that helps keep the pacing up. I would have liked to have seen Evelyn interact a little more with May and Nell. I would have also liked to see more on the intersection of race with the women's suffrage movement.

I would recommend this book to people with an interest in the Suffragette movement and those who want to read historical fiction but aren't sure where to start.