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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5090094708
#Aboutabook #Pub100yearsago
@eggs @alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
Bit of a cheat, this was published way more than 100 years ago and is still so relevant

Book #17 of the year: “The Odd Women” by George Gissing

Like if Pride and Prejudice had been written by a man. Meh.

This book exposes the miserable choices women in poverty were faced with in order to stay alive. Marriage was the only chance they had to significantly better their situation. Employment, for them, was almost always poorly paid, no matter how genteel the occupation. A woman couldn‘t afford to be choosy if a marriageable man with decent prospects came calling! Our heroine picks this option while her unmarried sisters eke out lives of quiet misery.

1. No theme-related plans. Just enjoying time off from work with my visiting daughter!
2. The ending in the tagged book. Very anticlimactic! ☹️
#Two4Tuesday

#sundayfunday

1. Tagged – I read it in a book club a few years ago. I had not heard of it before then.
2. Anything by Hemingway or Dickens
3. American Gods

This is one of those books I purchased on the recommendation of a friend and then allowed to languish on the shelf for years. To be honest, I picked it because I wanted something short. This was weightier than expected, with surprising but amazing commentary on women‘s roles in the late Victorian era. George Gissing was a feminist who thought deeply about the roles and restrictions his world offered and wrote a compelling and empathetic novel.

Never had it occurred to Widdowsdon that a wife remained an individual, with rights and obligations independent of her widely condition. Everything he said presupposed his own supremacy; he took for granted that it was his to direct, hers to be guided. A display of energy, purpose, ambition, on Monica‘s part, which had no reference to domestic pursuits, would have gravely troubled him.