Reviews with content warning for Racism - The Awakening

Overall I liked the book, it was very interesting from a feminist literary perspective. I personally did not like the main character edna, at least after finishing the book and sitting on it for a day. I thought she was rash, oblivious, and ignorant. She thought she was freeing herself at the end, but

Spoiler

her death was not freeing, she could have gone on living a life she wanted to and achieving things, she could have taught her children and other people what she learned, and most of all, she is perpetuating the cycle she grew up in, without a mother, by leaving her children motherless.

I admire Adele and I think edna took much of her advice the wrong way. I think Adele was a feminist in her own way, and that Edna did not and could not see that. To me Edna is not this enlightened feminist who finds herself, she is a troubled woman who does not know where she is in her life and does not know where she would like to go. She seems to appreciate the things she has and the things she has learned about herself, but she lets it all go at the end very suddenly. I think I would need to read the novel again to understand Edna and her actions.

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fatima_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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finnft4's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I didn't exactly mind this book, though I didn't have a great time reading it. I think that the message is crucial, especially for its time period, but it suffers from being too dense and prolonging short scenes across multiple pages. I feel like there are a lot of unnecessary moments and events that happen - all of which never exactly serve Edna's character development. The prose is also incredibly bulky (again, this was written in 1899, so it's expected). It mostly lost me about halfway through.

I think that the ending moments of the novel sort of cemented it as more so a depressing tale of a woman living in the 19th century who is a victim of her time rather than hopeful. This is fine, as long as that sort of storyline is your thing. For me, it felt a bit odd and ill-fitting - leaving a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

I guess my biggest criticism is that I simply just found it boring, but maybe I'm being influenced by this being an assigned reading.

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