Diary of a Mad Housewife by Sue Kaufman (1967) | Book Review
Diary of a Mad Housewife by Sue Kaufman Genres: Fiction Original Publication Date: 1967 Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Find the Author: Goodreads, Amazon Diary of a Mad Housewife is a classic of women’s fiction that gave a wry voice to the nascent feminist stirrings of the 1960s and helped incite a revolution in the consciousness of a generation. When Bettina Balser begins to suspect that she is going mad, she starts a secret diary as a form of therapy. Through her observations of herself and those around her, Bettina seeks meaning in her exceedingly dreary life. Diary Of A Mad Housewife Bettina Balser is thirty-six years old. She…
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath | Book Review
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Genres: American Literature, Fiction, Illness Original Publication Date: 1963 Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Find the Author: Website, Goodreads, Amazon In The Bell Jar, a vulnerable young woman wins a dream assignment on a big-time New York fashion magazine and finds herself plunged into a nightmare. An autobiographical account of Sylvia Plath’s own mental breakdown and suicide attempt, The Bell Jar is more than a confessional novel, it is a comic but painful statement of what happens to a woman’s aspirations in a society that refuses to take them seriously… a society that expects electroshock to cure the despair of a sensitive, questioning…
Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker (1962) | Book Review
Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker Genres: American Literature, Fiction, Illness, LGTBQ Original Publication Date: Originally published 1962 Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Find the Author: Goodreads, Amazon Cassandra Edwards is a graduate student at Berkeley: gay, brilliant, nerve-racked, and miserable. At the beginning of this novel, she drives back to her family ranch in the foothills of the Sierras to attend the wedding of her identical twin, Judith, to a nice young doctor from Connecticut. Cassandra, however, is hell-bent on sabotaging the wedding. Her Sister Is Getting Married Cassandra and Judith are 24-year-old twins. Up until the last nine months, they had shared almost everything together. That…
Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee: From Scout to Go Set a Watchman by Charles J. Shields | Book Review
Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee: From Scout to Go Set a Watchman by Charles J. Shields Genres: Biography, Non-Fiction Original Publication Date: Originally published 2006, this edition 2016 Goodreads Find the Author: Website, Blog, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon To Kill a Mockingbird—the twentieth century’s most widely read American novel—has sold thirty million copies and still sells a million yearly. In this in-depth biography, first published in 2006, Charles J. Shields brings to life the woman who gave us two of American literature’s most unforgettable characters, Atticus Finch and his daughter, Scout. Years after its initial publication—with revisions throughout the book and a new epilogue—Shields finishes the story of Harper Lee’s…
Tomorrow Will Be Better by Betty Smith | Book Review
Tomorrow Will Be Better by Betty Smith Genres: American Literature, Fiction Original Publication Date: 1948 Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Find the Author: Website, Goodreads, Amazon Tomorrow Will Be Better tells the story of Margy Shannon, a shy but joyfully optimistic young woman just out of school who lives with her parents and witnesses how a lifetime of hard work, poverty, and pain has worn them down. Her mother’s resentment toward being a housewife and her father’s inability to express his emotions result in a tense home life where Margy has no voice. Unable to speak up against her overbearing mother, Margy takes refuge in her dreams of a better…
