Tag Archives: Women’s Issues

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

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Synopsis:
A white woman writes the lives of the black women who work for her and her friends in early 1960s Jackson, Mississippi.

Review:
After having a half a dozen people recommend The Help, and then not being able to find it at the library, I decided to take the plunge and buy myself a shiny new hardcover copy. I went in with low expectations, because more often than not I’m disappointed by these kinds of books. Thank goodness I listened to my very smart friends because this was one of the best reads I’ve ever had. I was crying at the end–and I don’t think it was just postpartum hormones.

Aibileen and Minnie are black maids working in deeply segregated Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter Phelan is a white spinster, member of the Junior League and bridge club regular, who is starting to wish things could be different. The Help is told from all of their points of view as Skeeter embarks on an interview project that will let the maids tell their stories in their own words.

Stockett brings this world to life brilliantly. The relationships between the characters are diamond-sharp, and each person is so unique and specific that every word was a joy to read. She also brings to life the tension of life in the segregated south and shows the struggles faced by Aibileen and Minnie and their friends and family, without being patronizing or handwringingly melodramatic.

I loved this book and I want everyone I know to read it!

Posted in American Literature | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Reply

Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

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Synopsis:
A quartet of unlikely best friends deal with a post-feminist, post-grad life out of Smith College.

Review:
The appeal of Commencement is in its depiction of Smith College, caught between poles of conservative femininity and radical lesbianism. Each of the four protagonists deals with life issues that have something to do with the plight of the modern women. Their struggles are portrayed with nuance and pathos, but I wondered if the story would have resonated had it been set in a less idiosyncratic place. Only one of the characters–April–really differentiated herself from the other three, who, apart from their differing circumstances, didn’t seem to be all that different. I enjoyed the read but it didn’t blow me away.

Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz

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Synopsis:
A Princeton admissions officer faces a long-buried secret in the height of application season.

Review:
The college application process, shrouded in secrecy and constructed with fuzzy logic, proved quite fascinating in Admission. Watching Portia speak to prospective students, looking over her shoulder as she read through applications, and hearing her defend a process most believe inherently unfair and corrupt perked up a book with an otherwise unimpressive plot.

Portia and her long-time boyfriend Mark have reached a crisis in their relationship, just as Portia finds herself facing the consequences of a choice made long ago. Her angst and sorrow color all her interactions and ultimately shape her outlook when choosing which students deserve Princeton.

I liked the insider’s look at the college application process, and felt that Korelitz handled tricky material well. Though it got a little preachy at times, Korelitz usually managed to bring it back to the drama at hand. However, her structuring of Portia’s emotional journey wasn’t well thought out, and by the time her secret came out I’d guessed it a million times over. Korelitz backloads too large a chunk of the story, lessening its impact when all is finally revealed. I would have liked to have seen her integrate her revelations more consistently throughout the book.

Despite my criticisms, I found Admission to be eminently readable. I’m a character junkie, and between the snippets of applications essays opening each chapter, to the students Portia encounters while touring New England, and to the central figures in the story, I was thrilled with the variety and depth of the people Korelitz created.

Posted in American Literature | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Replies

Real Sex by Lauren Winner

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Synopsis:
An exploration of the meaning of chastity in the 21st century.

Review:
Real Sex is an excellent companion piece to Anna Broadway’s Sexless in the City. Winner offers a larger cultural and historical context for Broadway’s desire to live chastely, and has some ideas about why Broadway expresses some disappointment in the way she has been taught by the church to think about sex.

Winner’s analysis is thoughtful and well-researched, and is worth reading even by those who don’t hold the same beliefs in the importance of chastity as Winner.

Loose Girl by Kerry Cohen

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Synopsis:
An autobiography of a promiscuous life.

Review:
The most striking thing about Kerry Cohen’s Loose Girl is the inevitability of her misbehavior. Cohen’s parents divorced when she was a preteen, and neither one seems able to practice any kind of responsible or involved parenting. Her dad is the kind of guy who asks for a toke when he catches his daughter and her friends getting high, and her mother is a gynecologist who prescribes abortion pills for Cohen without even an office visit. Both parents exhibit some very creepy boundary-crossing behavior. The only surprise here is that worse didn’t happen to Cohen.

As the mother of a daughter who reads a lot of stuff like this, I’m well aware of the pitfalls facing girls and young women navigating today’s world. I really hope that Superfast Husband and I can provide the kind of home where she will feel safe and secure to explore her independence–take risks without engaging in self-destructive behavior.

Cohen’s life was a misery, until she (hopefully) managed to break her pattern. Loose Girl is a sad, sobering read that sheds a lot of light on the inner pain of such a free spirit.

Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein

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Synopsis:
A writer and journalist who never wanted kids finds herself spiraling into obsession when she begins to try to conceive.

Review:
Peggy Orenstein paints herself in such a bad light in Waiting for Daisy that it’s next to impossible to sympathize with her predicament. And that’s too bad, because three miscarriages are a lot to suffer through. However, Orenstein paints her desire for a child not as a powerful emotional urge but as an accomplishment she can’t live without. She never once talks about wanting to be a mother, or even wanting to have a baby. She is singularly focused on getting pregnant and staying that way for as long as possible.

Near the end of the book, there’s a truly bizarre incident that actually broke my heart a little bit. Orenstein’s husband is Japanese, and during one trip to Japan, Orenstein put her name on a list for a Japanese baby. She gets a call that there is a baby who needs parents, and she never calls back. However, when her husband learns that she hid this from him, he goes ballistic. So they get back on the waiting list and eventually another baby comes up. They travel all the way to Japan and spend the weekend with the little guy, like they’re test-driving him, and then decide not to go through with it because the paperwork will take too long and besides she’s pregnant again anyway. Her writing about this incident is so vague and unfocused and emotionally detached that I got really creeped out. Shopping for babies.

I don’t like to criticize a book like this, one that is so personal, and came from such a dark and difficult experience. But I don’t think Orenstein did her own story justice. I am glad that she had a child in the end, and I hope that she is enjoying every minute of it.

Posted in American Literature | Tagged , , , , | 8 Replies

Misconceptions by Naomi Wolf

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Synopsis:
The personal is political, as feminist thinker Naomi Wolf uses her c-section as a springboard for the way in which the maternity care system in America infantilizes women.

Review:
There’s nothing in Misconceptions that hasn’t appeared in any number of other exposes of the state of maternal care in the US, such as Jennifer Block’s Pushed, which I reviewed a few months ago. However, it’s the way in which Wolf presents the information that makes this a must read, even if you’ve read it all before.

Wolf uses the popular pregnancy guide What To Expect When You’re Expecting and deconstructs its message, in order to show how the book takes power away from pregnant women. For example, the book presents a diet plan that is impossible to follow in its entirety. It’s simply too much food. But the book doesn’t expect you to follow the diet exactly, because it assumes that you’re not smart enough. So it gives you too much food in the hopes that you will eat some of it. This condescension is mirrored in the way that obstetricians and hospitals treat pregnant and laboring women, who are not to be trusted to make choices that are in the best interests of their babies.

Wolf had a particularly horrific birth experience which ended in a c-section that she describes in horror-movie terms. It is hard not to be moved when she describes the pain of a friend who is haunted by the thought that while recovering she could not know if her baby was crying. It pained my heart to read these stories, because there is something seriously wrong when 30% of laboring women end up with major abdominal surgery and all of its concomitant issues. Women are let down by a system that cares more about the bottom line than about their health and that of their children.

Wolf faltered in the section discussing the first months of her daughter’s life. It seemed that she described a caricature of a life, not the thing itself. She alluded to needing to supplement her daughter, and I would’ve liked to have heard more about how that came about, since she seemed pro-breastfeeding. Many women have difficulties and it would have been illuminating and instructive to hear hers.

I probably should not read any more books on this topic. They upset me too much. I am thankful I live in New York State where homebirth midwives are legal and where statistics on interventions are in the public record.

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The Shaming of the Strong by Sarah Williams

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Synopsis:
Told their unborn child has birth defects that will likely lead to stillbirth, a couple decide to see the pregnancy through to term.

Review:
I am a sucker for stories like those found in The Shaming of the Strong. When I was pregnant with Superfast Baby I thought a lot about what I would do if I found out that something was wrong, and I hoped that I would be strong enough to make the choice that Sarah Williams made, however painful it might be. I decided not to have any testing done during pregnancy so that I wouldn’t be faced with that decision. Having suffered a miscarriage before getting pregnant with Superfast Baby, my heart goes out to all mothers whose pregnancies take a painful turn.

I actually found it hard to read this book. What Sarah Williams experienced as she carried her child to term and delivered a stillborn baby was so painful to me as a mother that I just didn’t want to get too close. It is just too easy to put myself in her shoes, and I found that I did not want to go there with her. The book was given to me by a dear friend who also had a miscarriage, and she found it very healing. I can definitely see why, and I am sure that I will return to this book in the future.

Posted in Canadian Literature | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Replies

Sexless in the City by Anna Broadway

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Synopsis:
The misadventures of a hapless twenty-something woman whose greatest fear is that she will die a virgin, and whose second greatest fear is that she’ll have sex before marriage.

Review:
I’ll let you know up front that there’s no way that I can be objective about Sexless in the City, because Anna Broadway met the woman who bought her book in my very living room. (Yes, I am Blogyenta, formerly known as Girlfriend #6.)

Reading Anna’s book was like sitting down to have a good long talk. We used to do this all the time, but then she decided that she could no longer resist the call to California, and off she went. Thankfully she’s great about keeping in touch, and made sure to come and meet Superfast Baby when she was in town a few months ago. Anna’d also honored me be asking my opinion on many a key section of the book, so there wasn’t much that was unfamiliar to me. Knowing how hard she fought to tell the truth, even when it painted her in a less than flattering light, I’m pleased to see that the end result is something of which she can be truly proud.

So congratulations, Anna! We miss you *kiss*

Household Gods by Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove

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Synopsis:
A San Francisco lawyer finds herself magically spirited back to ancient Rome, where she ends up running a tavern and weathering a German invasion.

Review:
I’m reading Household Gods for an online book club, and the only reason I didn’t quit this book is because I really like the people in the book club. I am not worried about hurting anyone’s feelings by admitting it, because I’m the one who chose it! It’s been languishing in my TBR stack since Christmas 2006 when my ancient Rome-loving dad gave it to me.

I really had trouble with the fact that Nicole accepted her fate so readily–especially since she was a mother. If I were in her shoes I’d be freaking out worrying about Superfast Baby. I wouldn’t be able to think about anything but getting back to her. Nicole barely thinks about them. It really kept me from connecting with her.

The writing isn’t that great, either. I was hoping for something magnificently trashy like Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, but this didn’t even come close. However, I am looking forward to hearing what my book club has to say about it–should be a fun discussion.