Review: The Awakening

The Awakening by Kate Chopin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a must read for any young women who are interested in "women's studies". It is a tidy story but the reader is left with unwieldy thoughts at the end. After being with Edna Pontellier for 140 pages, at the end it is not immediately possible (at least it should not be) to evaluate her character. Chopin weaves a sad complex landscape for the feminist.

I could not put the book down.

Through Edna's trials and tribulations, the reader feels as if she is walking down a slow, narrow corridor. I was worried that the boundaries of her yarn were too tightly strung up. But at the end of the corridor I discovered with relief an enormous question - one that sits in a vast wilderness of every woman's soul.

Loved this book.

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