A review by zoet
Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
5.0
A little out of my normal genre, Young Jane Young was a blast!
Right in the first chapter with Aviva's mother, Rachel Grossman, she is a riot and I'm sitting here thinking, this book is going to be awesome.
"Young Jane Young is about a young woman named Aviva Grossman, who imagines having a brilliant career in politics but instead finds herself disgraced as she slept with her boss. It's about the traps a woman in politics can fall into that her male counterpart never has to consider. A man puts on a suit and a tie and an American flag pin and that's the end of the story. He is a politician. A female politician's appearance is always a disputed territory, a matter of discussion." (Summary well put in Zevin's after story essay The Suit
The thing I liked most throughout the entire book is how witty, sarcastic, and strong the women are. Each of them to the mothers, to the young women who make mistakes and then become mothers, and then to the mothers who are left to lie in a bed with a husband who lies in several beds--they're all wonderful and wonderfully strong ladies, persistent in their drive to live their own lives.
In a world where a woman's life is marketed by men, critiqued by men, and used as a tool for a man's happiness and fulfilled life, Young Jane Young really highlights that if you are a woman scorned, don't brush the dirt off. Don't wipe the dirt from the wound. Rub it in, pull your shoulders back, and give everyone a big, fat middle finger.
Right in the first chapter with Aviva's mother, Rachel Grossman, she is a riot and I'm sitting here thinking, this book is going to be awesome.
"Young Jane Young is about a young woman named Aviva Grossman, who imagines having a brilliant career in politics but instead finds herself disgraced as she slept with her boss. It's about the traps a woman in politics can fall into that her male counterpart never has to consider. A man puts on a suit and a tie and an American flag pin and that's the end of the story. He is a politician. A female politician's appearance is always a disputed territory, a matter of discussion." (Summary well put in Zevin's after story essay The Suit
The thing I liked most throughout the entire book is how witty, sarcastic, and strong the women are. Each of them to the mothers, to the young women who make mistakes and then become mothers, and then to the mothers who are left to lie in a bed with a husband who lies in several beds--they're all wonderful and wonderfully strong ladies, persistent in their drive to live their own lives.
In a world where a woman's life is marketed by men, critiqued by men, and used as a tool for a man's happiness and fulfilled life, Young Jane Young really highlights that if you are a woman scorned, don't brush the dirt off. Don't wipe the dirt from the wound. Rub it in, pull your shoulders back, and give everyone a big, fat middle finger.