martinafacose's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
jdsatori's review against another edition
2.0
Lessing's parable about how we arrived at our gender roles / division of labor would have made an excellent short story. As a novel, it drags. Plot is sparse and there's never a chance to latch on to a character.
sonda_says's review against another edition
3.0
It was interesting at the beginning but gets kind of pointless ... and the end is sudden.
annao's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
siriusly_reading's review
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
qqjj's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
jiffy1066's review against another edition
Me going into this book: I bet I’m going to love this and the people who gave it a low rating just don’t get it. I mean, it won the Pulitzer!
Me a quarter in: WTF even is this?!? Why am I still reading it? It’s just so……why?
Me now: I would like to issue a formal apology to everyone who gave this book a low rating. You were right and I was very, very wrong.
Me a quarter in: WTF even is this?!? Why am I still reading it? It’s just so……why?
Me now: I would like to issue a formal apology to everyone who gave this book a low rating. You were right and I was very, very wrong.
brisingr's review against another edition
1.0
I have like..... ten thousand questions on why exactly have I read this book in its entirety, I hate myself for being a goody two shoes. I can totally see why we'd be discussing it in our gender class, but I have so many personal problems with the way in which this idea was handled, I don't even know where to start. At the end of the novel, I'm left with: WHAT THE FUCK and SO WHAT? I couldn't have cared less about anything here if I wished, and for being a supposedly "alternate reality fiction", it changed... absolutely nothing in the working of the world.
"In Rome now, a sect – the Christians – insist that the first female was brought forth from the body of a male. Very suspect stuff, I think. Some male invented that – the exact opposite of the truth."
‘I don’t want to be like them’ . . . the idea that had made revolutions,
wars, split families, or driven the bearer of the idea mad or into new active life . . . ‘I won’t be like them, I won’t.’ Maire and Astre were shuddering at the horror of what they might become.
"The women standing here, beside Maronna, were all mothers, and every male there had been dandled, fussed over, fed, cleaned, slapped, kissed, taught by a female... and this is such a heavy and persuasive history that I am amazed we don’t remember it more often."
"In Rome now, a sect – the Christians – insist that the first female was brought forth from the body of a male. Very suspect stuff, I think. Some male invented that – the exact opposite of the truth."
‘I don’t want to be like them’ . . . the idea that had made revolutions,
wars, split families, or driven the bearer of the idea mad or into new active life . . . ‘I won’t be like them, I won’t.’ Maire and Astre were shuddering at the horror of what they might become.
"The women standing here, beside Maronna, were all mothers, and every male there had been dandled, fussed over, fed, cleaned, slapped, kissed, taught by a female... and this is such a heavy and persuasive history that I am amazed we don’t remember it more often."