I have come to the conclusion of saying to a new shooter "If the handgun isn't comfortable in the hand, then find another one, because if the comfort factor isn't there (gun/hand fitting correctly) then the recoil is going to be a problem more than anything."
Proved correct on that one again with my wife. She could NOT make her 1911's work for herself, no matter what we tried to do for with the manual of arms; she was flawless with shooting them for years. Stepped into revolvers, and she could shoot them, but recoil was always an issue. At a range play day, I finally got her to shoot my SAR B6P (CZ75 clone), and she loved it! She could reooad, function slide, recoil was no problem, and it fit her hand comfortably. Problem solved, her S&W 19 went down the road for another CZ clone, and she is happy now.