The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer

‘The Female Persuasion’ by Meg Wolitzer was the last book that I read on my trip back across the Atlantic on QM2 but unfortunately the crossing wasn’t long enough for this book and really I needed to go back to New York again to finish it off !!!

I have, since finishing it on 18th August, thought long and hard about what to put into this review to give a balanced view point.  I have, even dear readers looked at what others have written about this book just to check that my opinions are warranted. So here goes ............

Before reading’The Female Persuasion’ the synopsis of the book led me to believe that it was about a life in feminism and how a uni graduate grew to be a leading feminist with the the support of a friend and a woman who had inspired her at university and then encouraged her through life. Having read the 462 odd pages, I spotted the odd reference to feminism early doors but, elsewhere very little was mentioned about the subject. This led me to wonder what actually in fact was this book all about. More about that in a moment.

So the story centres around Greer who is quite a shy reserved person but highly intelligent. At school she meets fellow highly academic, Cory and as they are shunned by most others at school they eventually fall in love in their mid teens. Both achieving great grades at School they are hopeful of both going to Princeton University but to Greer’s horror, her parents fail to correctly fill out the scholarship grant forms and as a result Greer ends up at Ryland University whilst Cory goes to Princeton.

At a freshers party Greer is hit upon by a slime ball named Darren Tinzler and he sexuality assaults her. She reports it to the university authorities but Tinzler gets away with it despite other girls coming forward and saying similar things have happened to them at the hands of Tinzler. Greer is supported by Zee, a lesbian feminist with strong high held views and they become good friends but Greer is reluctant to loosen herself in to Uni life and prefers to skype with Cory and visit him at weekends.

Zee persuades Greer to attend a speech at Uni given by life long feminist Faith Franks who is an editor of a Feminist magazine. After a chance meeting between Greer and Faith in the ladies toilets , Faith gives Greer her business card and suggests that she get in contact if ever she feels the need too. We are then led to believe that this chance Meeting changes Greer as a person but sadly that doesn’t actually come through in the rest of the story.

The rest of the story then completely loses the feminist thread and we amble through the lives of Greer, Cory, Faith and Zee for the next 15 years or so at a very slow and often uninteresting pace and you are left actually wondering what ‘The Female Persuasion’ is actually all about. Greer seems to just plod through life and is Faith’s loo roll, Cory just loses the plot, Zee doesn’t do a lot with her life and Faith is really a bit of non entity.

As a Mark out of ten, sadly this is only a 4, I had expected following the pre release hype that I would be looking at a 7+, but on my scoring scale, no not a chance !! It’s not helped by its slow pace and you just want to get to the end as quickly as possible so that you can move onto your next read.

So, when to read this on a cruise, hmmmm I think I would have to say read it if you can’t find anything else to read, and if you do read it, make sure you have a lot of sea days on a long cruise as it’s a tough read and takes ages to get through.

If you are interested in finding out more about Meg Wolitzer and her back catalogue have a look at her website http://megwolitzer.com/ , but be warned the website is nearly as dull as ‘The Female Persuasion’

Hope you enjoy the review and as ever feel free to leave any comments.

Canberralover