The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
I was a bit apprehensive that this book would be too overly about something — feminism — but for the most part I found it to be sufficiently personal, that is, about the characters, who were richly drawn and had believable motivations. It’s a bit diffuse — we get sojourns into the lives, ambitions, and pain of quite a number of characters — and I think it ends perhaps a bit too cutely — but on the whole I enjoyed it. It puts a little too much on the page to feel truly artistic or insightful, but Greer, Corey, Zee, and Faith Frank are memorable characters I’m glad to have met!
(Another note: there is something very dramatic that happens part way into the book that is not directly tied to the overarching theme, and that is really quite shocking — the book’s ability to catch me off guard like that is to its credit).
Amy P. Knight 