A review by jeremiglio
Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, by Lori Gottlieb
1.0
I'm about 1/3 of the way in, having started reading purely out of morbid curiosity as a happily married woman who was lucky enough to meet my perfect partner aged 22. And there's no fucking way I'm reading any more of it.
My problems with it are, principally:
1. it's extremely whiny and clearly personal for the author. It's fine that she has regrets, but generalising from this and cherry-picking other anecdotal evidence is dumb. Which brings me to
2. it completely ignores the idea that some women may be ok with not getting married or having kids. Seriously - if I hadn't met anyone who enhanced my life as much as my partner does, I'd happily have taken on the role of mad spinster aunt with heaps of spare money and time. We do exist, even if Gottlieb thinks we're just in denial (and she claims to be a feminist lol)
3. it assumes that gender roles, re. for example sharing childcare and income, are innate, which is so problematic and plain WRONG I don't even know where to start (again, 'feminist' lmfao)
4. it repeats the same basic premise over and over. The female fertility window is narrow. If we want kids we may need to compromise. I didn't need 300 pages to tell me that.
Tl;dr - EUW. Sexist, poorly-researched garbage
My problems with it are, principally:
1. it's extremely whiny and clearly personal for the author. It's fine that she has regrets, but generalising from this and cherry-picking other anecdotal evidence is dumb. Which brings me to
2. it completely ignores the idea that some women may be ok with not getting married or having kids. Seriously - if I hadn't met anyone who enhanced my life as much as my partner does, I'd happily have taken on the role of mad spinster aunt with heaps of spare money and time. We do exist, even if Gottlieb thinks we're just in denial (and she claims to be a feminist lol)
3. it assumes that gender roles, re. for example sharing childcare and income, are innate, which is so problematic and plain WRONG I don't even know where to start (again, 'feminist' lmfao)
4. it repeats the same basic premise over and over. The female fertility window is narrow. If we want kids we may need to compromise. I didn't need 300 pages to tell me that.
Tl;dr - EUW. Sexist, poorly-researched garbage