Just in time I finished reading this book that was worth a few sleep-deprived days and that deals with, if not all, then a lot of the issues: trust, support, betrayal, power, money (and how entangled those two are, of course), relationships and how to navigate them (and also, again, the power theme here), altruism and narcissism, love and indifference, death and turtles. Well, nothing Jonathan Franzen couldn’t have written. But here is the kicker: It is by a woman and about women, and this is still very much worth mentioning. It speaks about problems that arise among women and between women and men, but not in a “wouldn’t pass the Bechdel test”-way. It’s about how hellishly complicated it is to be a woman every minute of every day, at work, at home, at all the places. How problems arise between different streams of feminism within and across generations, how to deal with champagne feminism (can/must you?), how the boundaries of self-imposed and pre-existent pressure are sometimes almost impossible to detect. It is about (illegal) abortions and casually mentions misogyny in the video game industry and yet, it works. (It also introduces a game idea that I think is brillant, but I also might be the biggest non-gamer ever). And in the end, when you think it resolves a little too smoothly, it lets you know it knows you know.
I would try to sell you on it with a catchy joke, but I can’t think of one right now, but that’s okay cause women aren’t supposed to be funny.
Happy International Women’s Day to you all!
P.S.: I absolutely understand the criticism it received, though, I just chose to accept the self-awareness of its flaws and the limitations of one novel and one writer with her own specific background (which might be a bit too easy for me, I admit). For further reading on said criticism, I recommend this article by Claire Fallon in the US HuffingtonPost: https://bit.ly/2W3EZqL