Scan barcode
A review by olivethebooks
The Odd Women by George Gissing
5.0
An instant favorite. I picked it up from the library on a whim. It looked like a really obscure Victorian classic and I barely skimmed the title before adding it to my pile. I left it for about a year - the luxury of having 20 three week renewals - pursuing other books with more eye catching covers in the meantime. If I can find this in a really nice edition I will definitely buy myself a copy.
This is such an understated book and I also can't believe it was written by a man in the 1890's! It's definitely not that stuffy Victorian image you might conjure up. It's incredibly forward thinking and radical for the time. The characters were very well written and I did worry it was going to be all social commentary with a very slow, dragging plot. It was not. I was gripped. I had a couple days of work where I was exhausted from reading it so late into the night because I absolutely did not want to put it down. I'm still enamored with this book and part of that is because I totally wasn't expecting to enjoy it so much. There were lovely insights into aspects of Victorian society that are usually left out completely or glossed over in other novels of the time but not in such a way that you feel like you're reading non-fiction.
I was really dismayed that Rhoda and Everard never reconcile and end up together, but I think I would have been far more upset had they done so because I'm not convinced it was a good match long term and I like a healthy dose of realism.
This book is about women, feminism, marriage, Victorian patriarchal society, and the unmarried women who are outliers in that society.
This is such an understated book and I also can't believe it was written by a man in the 1890's! It's definitely not that stuffy Victorian image you might conjure up. It's incredibly forward thinking and radical for the time. The characters were very well written and I did worry it was going to be all social commentary with a very slow, dragging plot. It was not. I was gripped. I had a couple days of work where I was exhausted from reading it so late into the night because I absolutely did not want to put it down. I'm still enamored with this book and part of that is because I totally wasn't expecting to enjoy it so much. There were lovely insights into aspects of Victorian society that are usually left out completely or glossed over in other novels of the time but not in such a way that you feel like you're reading non-fiction.
Spoiler
I was really dismayed that Rhoda and Everard never reconcile and end up together, but I think I would have been far more upset had they done so because I'm not convinced it was a good match long term and I like a healthy dose of realism.
This book is about women, feminism, marriage, Victorian patriarchal society, and the unmarried women who are outliers in that society.