A review by circularcubes
The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin by Kate Chopin

4.0

I'd read two of Kate Chopin's stories before (Story of an Hour and A Pair of Silk Stockings), both of which I absolutely adored. I wanted to read more of her work because I knew her importance as an early feminist writer, and this book did not disappoint. The Awakening, while a little slow to start and somewhat uneven, was absolutely compelling. Thank god I'm not a woman living in that time period, because I would have handled marriage and motherhood even worse than Edna did. I would love to have read this for a class, because it's a great book to discuss with others (and that ending! My lord!)
The short stories, on a whole, didn't work so much for me, but I'm not a big fan of the short story to begin with. Nonetheless, there were a couple of stand outs (the two I'd read before and Desiree's Baby come immediately to mind) and on a whole they painted a colorful world which I haven't read much of before.