Scan barcode
therightprofile's review against another edition
4.0
The book was published in 1963 and became a bestseller while being banned in several countries, but I only just got to read it.
It was a rather interesting, insightful and often harrowing read, with all 8 women dealing with various challenges in their lives, especially those perpetrated by the men. Not to go into too much details, there is physical and emotional abuse, and a tragedy punctuates the novel. The characters appear to have been lifted from real life and feel tangible. The writing is very matter-of-fact, almost documentary in its approach, which does become tedious but the important and the overall impact of the novel cannot be overstated. I especially recommend that men read it.
It was a rather interesting, insightful and often harrowing read, with all 8 women dealing with various challenges in their lives, especially those perpetrated by the men. Not to go into too much details, there is physical and emotional abuse, and a tragedy punctuates the novel. The characters appear to have been lifted from real life and feel tangible. The writing is very matter-of-fact, almost documentary in its approach, which does become tedious but the important and the overall impact of the novel cannot be overstated. I especially recommend that men read it.
cowmingo's review against another edition
2.0
This book was just okay. A little hard to follow at times and then it just sort of ended. Like you would end a chapter but this was an end to the book. I had to go back and read the ending a few times because I couldn't believe it just ended like it did. Definitely not a re-read here but it was interesting for the most part.
heartsneedle's review against another edition
3.0
3.5/5
Sexuality, Marriage, Instability
“You have to live without love, learn not to need it in order to live with it.”
Overall: The Group tried to be too many things, had too many characters, and in the end had a hit-or-miss quality to it. The unevenness between characters was all very glaring, and the ending left me abit baffled.
Pros:
-- handles discussions about (the 1930s) contraception with detail
-- Kay’s and Harold’s relationship until psychiatric stay
-- Libby’s character
Cons:
-- haphazardly written plot
-- dealt with too many characters
Sexuality, Marriage, Instability
“You have to live without love, learn not to need it in order to live with it.”
Overall: The Group tried to be too many things, had too many characters, and in the end had a hit-or-miss quality to it. The unevenness between characters was all very glaring, and the ending left me abit baffled.
Pros:
-- handles discussions about (the 1930s) contraception with detail
-- Kay’s and Harold’s relationship until psychiatric stay
-- Libby’s character
Cons:
-- haphazardly written plot
-- dealt with too many characters
jessmanners's review against another edition
3.0
I don't think I have anything to say about this book that hasn't been said a million times already...it's a fun read, but it feels like McCarthy bit off more than she could chew. I don't understand why she felt the need to focus on eight girls, because a) it's clear she doesn't care about some of them at all (Pokey, for example, and Helena seems to just exist to push other stories along), b) there are other people she seems more interested in (Norine, Harald), and c) the end result is that I have only a hazy idea of who Libby or Pokey or Dottie or Priss are, and even the characters who get much more time, or character--Kay--feel very surface-level.
I think you could make the argument that that's a deliberate choice--we never really get to know anyone else, so just dropping in on these girls lives and hearing about them through rumors and innuendo reflects real life, but still...books can delve deeper, and I would have liked this one to!
I was sure when I started reading this that it was written much earlier than it was, so when I double checked and realized that it was actually published in the 60s, I felt a little...cheated. I can't articulate this well, but there are so many moments that scream "can you believe life was really like this back then?!" that lose their shock value, or feel more manipulative, when you realize they're being told from a 30ish year distance. The best analogy I can come up with is Mad Men, which is great with period detail when it comes to set and costume design, but seems to be just hitting the broad strokes of what The Sixties Were Like (okay, I confess, that's a borrowed opinion that I can't back up). I found myself second-guessing all my reactions. Did husbands really have that much control over their wives? Would women really respond that way (or that way, or that way) to infidelity? or rape? or a million other things in the book...I guess, to be fair, that isn't entirely McCarthy's fault. Hell, I might want to write a novel about the early 2000s in 20 years, and it's not my fault if some dumb reader comes along later and feels skeptical, but, well, still. I feel skeptical. And a little manipulated.
Also, I honestly don't understand the role of Lakey. I had it in my head that she was the central figure (I think because her counterpart in [b:A Fortunate Age|4052110|A Fortunate Age|Joanna Rakoff|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347414779s/4052110.jpg|4099117] was the central figure, but she seemed to loom so large in everyone's mind, and then she has that bizarre interaction with Harald, and then...nothing. I don't get it!
I do like the style in which the wedding and funeral scenes were written...is it free indirect discourse? I've been out of the teaching game too long! Anyway, this sense that when The Group is back together, they have this sort of collective consciousness, this hivemind, even after they've been apart for so long. It does strike me as strange, now that I'm thinking it through, that we actually only see the group together at the beginning and the end. I expect that's the point, but again, I feel like I don't quite get that, either. Ah well!
I think you could make the argument that that's a deliberate choice--we never really get to know anyone else, so just dropping in on these girls lives and hearing about them through rumors and innuendo reflects real life, but still...books can delve deeper, and I would have liked this one to!
I was sure when I started reading this that it was written much earlier than it was, so when I double checked and realized that it was actually published in the 60s, I felt a little...cheated. I can't articulate this well, but there are so many moments that scream "can you believe life was really like this back then?!" that lose their shock value, or feel more manipulative, when you realize they're being told from a 30ish year distance. The best analogy I can come up with is Mad Men, which is great with period detail when it comes to set and costume design, but seems to be just hitting the broad strokes of what The Sixties Were Like (okay, I confess, that's a borrowed opinion that I can't back up). I found myself second-guessing all my reactions. Did husbands really have that much control over their wives? Would women really respond that way (or that way, or that way) to infidelity? or rape? or a million other things in the book...I guess, to be fair, that isn't entirely McCarthy's fault. Hell, I might want to write a novel about the early 2000s in 20 years, and it's not my fault if some dumb reader comes along later and feels skeptical, but, well, still. I feel skeptical. And a little manipulated.
Also, I honestly don't understand the role of Lakey. I had it in my head that she was the central figure (I think because her counterpart in [b:A Fortunate Age|4052110|A Fortunate Age|Joanna Rakoff|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347414779s/4052110.jpg|4099117] was the central figure, but she seemed to loom so large in everyone's mind, and then she has that bizarre interaction with Harald, and then...nothing. I don't get it!
I do like the style in which the wedding and funeral scenes were written...is it free indirect discourse? I've been out of the teaching game too long! Anyway, this sense that when The Group is back together, they have this sort of collective consciousness, this hivemind, even after they've been apart for so long. It does strike me as strange, now that I'm thinking it through, that we actually only see the group together at the beginning and the end. I expect that's the point, but again, I feel like I don't quite get that, either. Ah well!
breadforsong's review against another edition
3.0
Tone and content wise, this reminded me a little of The Golden Notebook. And in the same way, there are some very touching and memorabe scenes that will stay with me, but large chunks of the book I wanted to speed read, as they just didn't grip me. Still, overall I think it's quite a powerful piece of literature.
jessrock's review against another edition
4.0
Everyone talks about how forward-thinking and ahead of its time The Group was, but no one seems to agree on when it appeared, variously citing dates in the 1950s and 1960s. It seems the book was largely published as short stories in various magazines, with the first - "Dottie Makes an Honest Woman of Herself" - appearing in 1954, and the book itself being published as a whole in 1963.
Knowing that the book was published in short stories goes a long way toward understanding its somewhat unusual structure. The book opens with a reunion of sorts - various members of Vassar class of 1933 get together shortly after graduation to attend the unorthodox wedding ceremony of their friend Kay, and so for the first few chapters we get to see the women all together, interacting as a group. However, their lives quickly pull them in different directions, and most of the book is made up of near-unrelated chapters that focus first on one woman, then on another. Their lives continue to intersect, some more than others, but most of the chapters really do stand on their own as isolated stories about individual members of the group. Not till the end does another event pull them all back together again and give us one last chance to see them all together.
The Group tackles a wide range of issues, from sexuality to psychology to politics, and while some of the language and attitudes are dated now, it's surprising how much of it remains relevant, and even more surprising to realize that much of the book was written more than 50 years ago. Beyond all the "issues," though, what makes the book so engaging and timeless is the interactions between the women, whose friendships are rarely simple.
Knowing that the book was published in short stories goes a long way toward understanding its somewhat unusual structure. The book opens with a reunion of sorts - various members of Vassar class of 1933 get together shortly after graduation to attend the unorthodox wedding ceremony of their friend Kay, and so for the first few chapters we get to see the women all together, interacting as a group. However, their lives quickly pull them in different directions, and most of the book is made up of near-unrelated chapters that focus first on one woman, then on another. Their lives continue to intersect, some more than others, but most of the chapters really do stand on their own as isolated stories about individual members of the group. Not till the end does another event pull them all back together again and give us one last chance to see them all together.
The Group tackles a wide range of issues, from sexuality to psychology to politics, and while some of the language and attitudes are dated now, it's surprising how much of it remains relevant, and even more surprising to realize that much of the book was written more than 50 years ago. Beyond all the "issues," though, what makes the book so engaging and timeless is the interactions between the women, whose friendships are rarely simple.
cheryl1213's review against another edition
I found this in a Little Free Library outside a high school in central Pennsylvania. I'd vaguely recognized the title. Skimming reviews before reading make me wonder if it was destined to fall to a younger woman...or if it could have led to a bunch of fuss if a student had picked it out. I'll put it back when...if?...I finish
magdon's review against another edition
3.0
read more like a series of essays than a story at times but interesting look at women's life in the 30s, especially from a "the more things change" view
editrix's review against another edition
I liked this, I think? A solid three stars at least? Maybe more?
This was very long and quite slow and sprawling, and most of what I found remarkable (meaning “worth marking” rather than “striking” or “extraordinary”) was specifically how the varied portraits of 1930s East Coast upper-class, educated womanhood were written about from the perspective of the early 1960s. The cultural critiques were interesting, often biting, and frequently sad, and they were alternately dated and extremely relevant. And yet, the farther I went along, the more it felt as if as the author were serving up these women on a sort of reverse assembly line, on which the subjects are not built into something greater than their parts but instead deconstructed and dissected. There was some great commentary here about class, religion, race, the sexes, sexuality, motherhood, infertility, mental health, domestic violence, infidelity, family drama...you name it. By the end, though, the overwhelming attitude I felt coming from the author was contempt. In some cases she outright disapproved of the women’s choices, and other times she left some room for pity, but overall I couldn’t shake the feeling that McCarthy *hated* these women, with the exception of the one who floated above it all by grace of her specific lifestyle (and even the fact of her being “above it all” was tinged with some degree of disapproval).
That said, these women felt real, and they felt to me like products (aha!) of their time in a way that it was interesting to have revealed in this sort of borderline trashy way. I wish I’d read a bit about McCarthy’s own life before starting this, so that’s my recommendation here if you want to dive in. If you like soap operas and poorly behaved society people and a hearty combination of mean girls and pearl clutchers and mommy shamers, this could be the book you’ve been waiting for.
Okay, yes, I guess I did like this after all.
UPDATE: Oh. Oh! The movie is so fitting. (Long, slow, and confusing, but weirdly satisfying.)
This was very long and quite slow and sprawling, and most of what I found remarkable (meaning “worth marking” rather than “striking” or “extraordinary”) was specifically how the varied portraits of 1930s East Coast upper-class, educated womanhood were written about from the perspective of the early 1960s. The cultural critiques were interesting, often biting, and frequently sad, and they were alternately dated and extremely relevant. And yet, the farther I went along, the more it felt as if as the author were serving up these women on a sort of reverse assembly line, on which the subjects are not built into something greater than their parts but instead deconstructed and dissected. There was some great commentary here about class, religion, race, the sexes, sexuality, motherhood, infertility, mental health, domestic violence, infidelity, family drama...you name it. By the end, though, the overwhelming attitude I felt coming from the author was contempt. In some cases she outright disapproved of the women’s choices, and other times she left some room for pity, but overall I couldn’t shake the feeling that McCarthy *hated* these women, with the exception of the one who floated above it all by grace of her specific lifestyle (and even the fact of her being “above it all” was tinged with some degree of disapproval).
That said, these women felt real, and they felt to me like products (aha!) of their time in a way that it was interesting to have revealed in this sort of borderline trashy way. I wish I’d read a bit about McCarthy’s own life before starting this, so that’s my recommendation here if you want to dive in. If you like soap operas and poorly behaved society people and a hearty combination of mean girls and pearl clutchers and mommy shamers, this could be the book you’ve been waiting for.
Okay, yes, I guess I did like this after all.
UPDATE: Oh. Oh! The movie is so fitting. (Long, slow, and confusing, but weirdly satisfying.)