A review by jacieandbooks
A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe

3.0

This is a hard one for me to review, quite honestly. I flipped between 3 and 4 for a bit and even then it’s been hard for me to pinpoint exactly what I didn’t like about it. There was a lot going on, as in several themes/ stories kind of interwoven. The themes of struggles of (new) motherhood (like), the spying on the soviets (meh), and then 2 romances (dislike). Katharina losing her identity and purpose in life because of becoming a mother and her husbands “rules” that made her life even more restrictive was well told and a great story, full of affirmation and reminders for women and mothers. The spy part of the story was rather lame.. not terribly eventful and I wouldn’t call this a “spy book”. The outcome was really unsatisfactory as well. The bit I did like was her showing that people can be good humans on both sides of any political discussion. Now onto the romance. Here’s the thing.. 1) the affair didn’t actually serve much purpose to the storyline and 2) it was pretty terribly inaccurate. I have done A LOT of research on 1950 in the US (as research for my own novel, happening in June 1950), it just seems impossible to me that a black man and a white woman could be seen together in so many public places. He comes to her in laws rich-y rich part of town and they sit together, hold hands, talk... I’m not an expert but segregation was alive and well, even in New York. It makes me feel as though the author didn’t research that aspect of her story. Whether is did know that and tweaked it to serve her purposes, I found it unappealing.