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A review by sam_k_
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
2.5
2.5/5
I apologize in advance to everyone who was forced to hear me talk about this book, first of all, but I am so mixed that giving this book a 2.5/5, exactly in the middle but skewing bad, is a pretty accurate representation of how I feel.
(Also I apologize in advance for what will definitely be a lengthy review.)
Unfortunately while I think that Meg Wolitzer had a good idea for a book on paper, the execution was absolutely not up to par. I think the ultimate problem with this book is that the two main characters we’re supposed to root for, Greer and Faith, are the blandest, most boring characters in this book by a long shot.
I also think that this book, like our protagonist Greer, is stuck in an identity crisis: there’s a lot of information and bumbling about, but unfortunately it fails to reach a point. It’s a character driven novel, so part of the interest is in the characters, but when the 2 main characters do not have personalities and are paper-thin, the character-driven storyline doesn’t really work. And there are also these weird bits where the author will be like “Greer is doing this, but in the future, when Greer is successful…” and then jump back into the present and it’s really jarring.
The best chapters in the book were easily chapters 3 and 6 which were from Greer’s boyfriend Cory’s point of view. Chapter 3 is a really interesting analysis of how Cory views his relationship with Greer, that it makes Greer’s wholesome views of Cory, who is her safety, so chilling that it ends up being a really great commentary on feminism, even if it’s more focused on how patriarchy hurts men’s perceptions of women (and themselves). Chapter 6 is also really empowering: without spoiling anything, Cory is essentially forced to change course in a really dramatic way and I think that the occupations he ends up swaying between say a lot about which genders tend to dominate which fields and how people’s changes in life course end up informing who they are.
Ultimately what’s wrong with the character of Faith Frank is that a lot of her notoriety comes from passages where the author tells us how influential she is.
Exhibit A: “[Faith] was so much better at speaking than the others. It wasn’t that she was an ideas person — that was never the case, exactly — and it wasn’t even that she was more articulate, but it was something else. People had to want to hear you.” (299).
The problem is that this idea gets repeated over and over again but we only hear Faith actually speak… three times?? For someone whose identity centers around this facet, that is way too little speaking for a 454 page book. (I think what’s even more disappointing is that when we get “show not tell” from Wolitzer about Faith, it just demonstrates that Faith sucks instead of her being this second-wave-feminist figure to admire.) Even worse, we get two chapters from Faith’s POV and both of them don’t really add much to what we’ve already learned about Faith. Really all you get are a few scenes you’ve already read about but from her POV.
And Greer… honestly I don’t feel anything for her because she’s another case of “show not tell.” This entire time as an audience we’re told that Greer is a superstar academic, but we don’t get to actually see that, we just see 1-2 scenes of her reading books (because apparently you can only like reading if you’re an academic). I guess we see her being shy but that’s kind of it from Greer unfortunately. On the back of the book, it also implies that we watch as Greer’s relationship with Cory becomes hard to navigate, but then they break up in literally one sentence so that’s really awesome and cool, thanks marketing team. It would’ve been a great opportunity to develop Greer’s character a little bit.
I genuinely think that if less of this book was centered around Greer’s (and honestly Wolitzer’s) hero worship of Faith Frank the book would be much better.
If you made it this far, you may be wondering why this book doesn’t get a 1 star. And honestly, that’s because I can see the potential that this book has.
Here are three things I liked about the book, just to even things out:
1. Zee, Greer’s friend’s chapters. The first Zee chapter is kind of boring but when we get the 2nd Zee chapter, we really get to see her grow in an occupation that she didn’t initially like or want to be in at first. You get to see her, in her own way, achieve her goals and it’s really cool to see.
2. Cory’s chapters, obviously.
3. The last two chapters in which shit hits the fan — it would’ve had the impact Wolitzer intended if we were invested in Greer and Faith, but I see and understand the intention and I still appreciated the ending.
One last thing I will comment on is the feminism in this book. Now as a general rule I am very wary of the historical exclusion of POC women and other minority women from the feminist movement, but I was willing to give this a chance because it promised good commentary on the movement.
Unfortunately, Faith Frank is a second wave feminist and we don’t see her change much in that. While I do think this makes a good commentary on the fact that it’s harder for older leaders to adapt to a modern day movement (while still acknowledging that they still had impact in the movement), Frank’s reasoning for not adapting to the movement makes no sense??
Take, for example, this passage: “[Bloomer, Faith Frank’s women’s magazine] had a hard time competing with Fem Fatale, which had shifted away from personal essays and was embracing a radical critique of sexism, capitalism, and homophobia… Bloomer tried, too, but while the editorial staff was pretty diverse, and diversity was among the topics frequently covered, there was a formal, slightly uneasy quality to the magazine. It hadn’t made a graceful leap forward.” (112)
Faith Frank does say later in the novel that she is promoting what she knows, but to me it feels like we’re supposed to root for Bloomer even though Wolitzer hasn’t really given us a true reason as to why Bloomer is a standout magazine (other than the fact that Faith Frank helps run it).
One last note and then I will shut up about this book I promise.
Last thing that bothers me is that Wolitzer writes all of these “feminist” statements thinking she’s making a statement but it just comes out as her own bitterness and it’s all worded really weirdly.
Two examples:
“‘No worries,’ Zee had said to Greer, which was an expression she and Greer both hated, so it was spoken by her ironically. Young, thin, uninteresting-looking women standing behind the counter in boutiques singsonged this phrase in response to just about anything: ‘Nuclear holocaust?’ ‘No worries!’ The expression was absurd, because everyone knew that everyone had legitimate worries all the time.” (223)
“What mattered about [a fictional action movie] was not its content, which was puerile. It seemed that in order for a female to have a huge cultural moment, it helped if she had a not overtly feminine name and was a hot, front-loaded, violent wench.” (331)
So unfortunately, while this book had potential, it very much missed the mark for me.
I apologize in advance to everyone who was forced to hear me talk about this book, first of all, but I am so mixed that giving this book a 2.5/5, exactly in the middle but skewing bad, is a pretty accurate representation of how I feel.
(Also I apologize in advance for what will definitely be a lengthy review.)
Unfortunately while I think that Meg Wolitzer had a good idea for a book on paper, the execution was absolutely not up to par. I think the ultimate problem with this book is that the two main characters we’re supposed to root for, Greer and Faith, are the blandest, most boring characters in this book by a long shot.
I also think that this book, like our protagonist Greer, is stuck in an identity crisis: there’s a lot of information and bumbling about, but unfortunately it fails to reach a point. It’s a character driven novel, so part of the interest is in the characters, but when the 2 main characters do not have personalities and are paper-thin, the character-driven storyline doesn’t really work. And there are also these weird bits where the author will be like “Greer is doing this, but in the future, when Greer is successful…” and then jump back into the present and it’s really jarring.
The best chapters in the book were easily chapters 3 and 6 which were from Greer’s boyfriend Cory’s point of view. Chapter 3 is a really interesting analysis of how Cory views his relationship with Greer, that it makes Greer’s wholesome views of Cory, who is her safety, so chilling that it ends up being a really great commentary on feminism, even if it’s more focused on how patriarchy hurts men’s perceptions of women (and themselves). Chapter 6 is also really empowering: without spoiling anything, Cory is essentially forced to change course in a really dramatic way and I think that the occupations he ends up swaying between say a lot about which genders tend to dominate which fields and how people’s changes in life course end up informing who they are.
Ultimately what’s wrong with the character of Faith Frank is that a lot of her notoriety comes from passages where the author tells us how influential she is.
Exhibit A: “[Faith] was so much better at speaking than the others. It wasn’t that she was an ideas person — that was never the case, exactly — and it wasn’t even that she was more articulate, but it was something else. People had to want to hear you.” (299).
The problem is that this idea gets repeated over and over again but we only hear Faith actually speak… three times?? For someone whose identity centers around this facet, that is way too little speaking for a 454 page book. (I think what’s even more disappointing is that when we get “show not tell” from Wolitzer about Faith, it just demonstrates that Faith sucks instead of her being this second-wave-feminist figure to admire.) Even worse, we get two chapters from Faith’s POV and both of them don’t really add much to what we’ve already learned about Faith. Really all you get are a few scenes you’ve already read about but from her POV.
And Greer… honestly I don’t feel anything for her because she’s another case of “show not tell.” This entire time as an audience we’re told that Greer is a superstar academic, but we don’t get to actually see that, we just see 1-2 scenes of her reading books (because apparently you can only like reading if you’re an academic). I guess we see her being shy but that’s kind of it from Greer unfortunately. On the back of the book, it also implies that we watch as Greer’s relationship with Cory becomes hard to navigate, but then they break up in literally one sentence so that’s really awesome and cool, thanks marketing team. It would’ve been a great opportunity to develop Greer’s character a little bit.
I genuinely think that if less of this book was centered around Greer’s (and honestly Wolitzer’s) hero worship of Faith Frank the book would be much better.
If you made it this far, you may be wondering why this book doesn’t get a 1 star. And honestly, that’s because I can see the potential that this book has.
Here are three things I liked about the book, just to even things out:
1. Zee, Greer’s friend’s chapters. The first Zee chapter is kind of boring but when we get the 2nd Zee chapter, we really get to see her grow in an occupation that she didn’t initially like or want to be in at first. You get to see her, in her own way, achieve her goals and it’s really cool to see.
2. Cory’s chapters, obviously.
3. The last two chapters in which shit hits the fan — it would’ve had the impact Wolitzer intended if we were invested in Greer and Faith, but I see and understand the intention and I still appreciated the ending.
One last thing I will comment on is the feminism in this book. Now as a general rule I am very wary of the historical exclusion of POC women and other minority women from the feminist movement, but I was willing to give this a chance because it promised good commentary on the movement.
Unfortunately, Faith Frank is a second wave feminist and we don’t see her change much in that. While I do think this makes a good commentary on the fact that it’s harder for older leaders to adapt to a modern day movement (while still acknowledging that they still had impact in the movement), Frank’s reasoning for not adapting to the movement makes no sense??
Take, for example, this passage: “[Bloomer, Faith Frank’s women’s magazine] had a hard time competing with Fem Fatale, which had shifted away from personal essays and was embracing a radical critique of sexism, capitalism, and homophobia… Bloomer tried, too, but while the editorial staff was pretty diverse, and diversity was among the topics frequently covered, there was a formal, slightly uneasy quality to the magazine. It hadn’t made a graceful leap forward.” (112)
Faith Frank does say later in the novel that she is promoting what she knows, but to me it feels like we’re supposed to root for Bloomer even though Wolitzer hasn’t really given us a true reason as to why Bloomer is a standout magazine (other than the fact that Faith Frank helps run it).
One last note and then I will shut up about this book I promise.
Last thing that bothers me is that Wolitzer writes all of these “feminist” statements thinking she’s making a statement but it just comes out as her own bitterness and it’s all worded really weirdly.
Two examples:
“‘No worries,’ Zee had said to Greer, which was an expression she and Greer both hated, so it was spoken by her ironically. Young, thin, uninteresting-looking women standing behind the counter in boutiques singsonged this phrase in response to just about anything: ‘Nuclear holocaust?’ ‘No worries!’ The expression was absurd, because everyone knew that everyone had legitimate worries all the time.” (223)
“What mattered about [a fictional action movie] was not its content, which was puerile. It seemed that in order for a female to have a huge cultural moment, it helped if she had a not overtly feminine name and was a hot, front-loaded, violent wench.” (331)
So unfortunately, while this book had potential, it very much missed the mark for me.