The Wife

Meg Wolitzer is a brilliant author. She can string a few words together and lo and behold, the most beautiful sparkly shiny sentence appears. (For the record, I'm sure she would say the process is a little more complicated.) But anyway, I love to read her books and I don't really care what they're about. The prose is just delicious. So of course I enjoyed reading this book.

However--I have to say the plotline here was sadly unsurprising. It's about a 1950s couple, a smart young lady at college and the professor-turned-author she falls in love with, and the woman is looking back over her life, and she is fairly bitter. Not entirely bitter, but bitter in that she knows exactly what she's missed out on by being a woman, the ways she was restricted by being born when she was, etc. She paints you a picture of her life and most of the women in it are stifled, unfulfilled in some way, and she is bitter about it. Also, I had heard it had a "surprise" ending, but I don't see how THAT could be considered much of a surprise. I saw it coming from the beginning. But I guess it might help if you were warned there was a surprise? I don't know but I was unimpressed with that part of it.

Loved the prose. The plot was not my favorite. But the things she has to say about 1950s housewives ring true. Sad but true.

Now I'm off to find more Meg Wolitzer to read.