Debriefing Darly: Coming of Age at Any Age

The back cover of Amy Virginia Evans’ novel, Debriefing Darly, says this: “When you fact check the facts of life…”. Talk about true words!

First let me say I loved this book, and I loved it for so many reasons. Ironically, I generally don’t much enjoy multiple characters, but in this book it worked, partly because each character was distinctive, and partly because of the unique format of the novel. The main character, Darly Lane, is doing a PhD study at Boston University. Debriefing Darly is about the study. The chapters each refer to the content of the study but they also include Darly’s personal story and those of the five study subjects, the Marvelous Mavens. This was a very cool way to present some serious information show more about the lives of women in general and impact of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s on women of a certain age today.


As a woman of that certain age, I identified strongly with a number of the issues each of the Mavens had experienced over fifty year’s time. I also thought about Darly’s thesis questions, and fact checked the Maven’s responses against my own. It all rang true. Then I decided to check out Ms. Evans’ history, in case she was presenting her own PhD study in fictionalized form. What I discovered made me laugh.


Ms. Evans graduated from Boston University in 1980 (not in the same field as Darly!) and then took courses at University of California, Berkeley. I started college at BU and then transferred to and graduated from Berkeley. Ms. Evans and I were enough years apart that we would not have crossed paths, but I recognized all the locations of Darly’s Boston and that was fun, too.


I feel that every novel has the potential to teach the truths of life, and I strive to bring truths to my own writing. I’m going to read Amy Evans’ other books, and I can’t wait to she what she has to say about other facts of life.

A highly recommended read for everyone of any age, sex, and gender.
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Debriefing Darly is an unabashedly feminist book that explores themes of the second wave of feminism and how it did, or did not help women at the time, and what that history means to young women today. The older female characters represent different outcomes, and Darly is a young woman who knows the facts of history, but not the personal impact. The older women take her to school!

This is an engaging book with interesting characters and a unique tale. The ending is a bit choppy and seems at times that the author wasn't sure where to go, but overall, this was a good book, and I enjoyed reading it. I'm about the same age as the older characters, and I recognized myself in some of their stories.

Overall, this book was a good read which highlighted a huge frustration with being a woman: no matter what you do, it's never good enough for anyone. Have kids? You didn't do enough to make sure they were successful. Don't have kids? You clearly have some sort of issue. Successful in business? Boy, your husband is probably miserable. Don't have a career? Gee, must be nice to just lay around the house all day. Do something just for yourself? Absolutely not, you selfish ungrateful wretch. Get upset about any of this? Hag. The five mavens (as they quickly name themselves) involved in the title character's research project embody all of this, and more. They are a colorful, enjoyable group of women, and they make the book worth reading. The show more title character, Darly, is an utterly unlikeable young woman who believes all of the typical things people are taught to believe about older women. She doesn't understand how they had so many opportunities to do things and, in her estimation, failed to do anything. Now, one of the women has raised five children, another has a sought-after photography business, and so forth, but never mind all of that. They didn't do the things Darly herself believes they ought to have done and are, therefore, failures to her. She redeems herself somewhat toward the end of the book, but promptly gets married, and it's pretty obvious that she's going to backtrack until she makes all of the mistakes she's been railing against for herself. In the end, the book makes its point - life is a personal journey. show less

I received a copy of Debriefing Darly as part of the Early Reviewer's Group and I'm glad I did.

Amy Virginia Evans has written an engaging book with magnificent characters that encourages you to keep reading. I am a reader nearly in the target age for the Mavens group discussed in the book and I have a daughter around Darly's age so this made the story even more relevant to me.

The book covers a few months time in the lives of six women and the topic of discussion is the Women's Movement of the late 1960s and how it did or did not change things. I'm not a feminist and have always felt that the movement did more harm than good. My views on that have not changed after reading this book.

There is much food for thought in this book and I show more definitely think it is worth the read. I do have a few things I would have changed.

The women should have been about 5 years older to be in the target demographic for Darly's assignment. The math may work out but the world experience doesn't. I was too young to have had the views of the movement given to these characters and I am less than 5 years younger than all of them.

The book should have been longer, perhaps even a series of books, to give you more time with the characters because they are great.

The book is a little unbalanced with about three-quarters of it being largely negative and the last quarter positive. I would have liked a not-so-sweet ending that fit better with the book's overall discoveries. Call me jaded but I doubt Ian would uphold his end of the bargain.

Despite my criticisms, I think this is a good read for women of any age to get them to think about how things were, are and could be. show less

The book chronicles Darly, a young graduate student who is desperate to understand 2nd wave feminism since her mother was involved in the movement as a college student. She devises a study that results in weekly meetings with a group of older women who did/should have had the benefit of 2nd wave feminism. But their lives are not what Darly was expecting. The groups impacts both the older women's lives and Darly's significantly. Overall, I enjoyed the book. It reminded me a bit of The Group by McCarthy about a group of women college grads through the years. It was set up in a really interesting way around the different parts of Darly's academic sociological study, but not in an overwrought or over done way. And there was a satisfying show more end to each of the women's stories. Lastly, it definitely got the point across that being a woman is NEVER easy, that the choices are always difficult, and that there are no wholly good ones, each comes with it's own set of sacrifices. A few notes: I had particular difficulty in keeping two charachters (Kimberly and Heidi) separate. They had so many similarities. While Darly, the Mavens and Ian are generally fully fleshed out characters, other charachters seem like cardboard stereotypes, especially the men. Which might be the point, and the book is plenty long enough, but maybe there was a way to give them more originality? Overall, a good read. show less

I really enjoyed "Debriefing Darly" and found myself answering the questions she asked the women in her study with my own experiences.
When someone asks what I did, learned or what opportunities I took advantage of during the women's or feminism movement, I usually answer with "Nothing. My husband wouldn't let me."
Not funny, but unfortunately true!
The author did a good job of portraying the choices or non-choices women really have in the world, even though the world seems to think that now they have things so much better than ever before in history.

I received a copy from LibraryThing Early Reviewers for an honest opinion. One word to describe this book was wonderful!. I can add so many more adjectives but it wouldn't do this story justice. I absolutely loved how this story was told through the lives of 5 women and the connection through the Marvelous Maven meetings. It was unique and many of the feelings, frustrations, and experiences described have been told to me from various different family members and friends but reading it really placed it into perspective of how experiences either lived by the woman or told to another woman helps shape women's choices for their lives. Bravo Ms. Evans for a fabulous story!