Book Pick for August 2026
Although I wouldn’t categorize The Mad Wife by Meagan Church as my favorite book that I read in August, it is a story that demands to be read and, ultimately, it illuminated a problem I don’t think people know or even consider. Set in the idyllic 1950’s neighborhood ala Mad Men, Lulu Mayfield is the queen of molded foods and gelatin salad. Her group of women in the neighborhood all follow a daily structured cleaning schedule. As they all complete these tasks in unison, they also gather to play cards and gossip. However, right after Lulu gives birth to her second child, her well-constructed Stepford Wife life begins to fall apart.
When a new family moves into the neighborhood, the aloof wife begins to mirror Lulu’s own changing life with some eerie differences. As Lulu manages postpartum depression with frozen TV dinners for her family and failed Jello salads, the new woman, Bitsy, seems to slowly replace Lulu at the card table, and meanwhile Bitsy’s husband seems to be vying for Lulu’s own husband’s job. As Lulu tries to figure out what Bitsy is hiding, it leads to her discovery of her relationship to the suicide of a woman in her old neighborhood. However, during investigation Lulu’s loss of her own grasp on her mental state comes to a head. As her mental grip begins to unravel, inner truths in her own life begin to emerge repercussions ensue. The outcome is one that neither she nor her husband ever saw coming, and neither did I. The twist of an ending is both a historic look at woman’s health, and a modern criticism of a headline making concern in our own time. With nods to the women writers who paved the way for others to write about their stifled potential through history, such as an allusion to Sylvia Plath’s suicide and Virginia Wolf’s short story “The Death of the Moth,” Church calls out her their bravery, though not quite as deftly. I will give credit where credit is due, and I was not expecting the ending to take me off guard as it did – it is truly a read for women who respect those who speak up and to those who suffer in silence.