A review by msraborn
Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

3.0

I guess I can sum it up by saying I expected both more and less—more info and less ego at the very least. I feel like the valuable parts were lost in the sea of self-congratulatory purple prose. Look, I'm actually a fan of Jung insofar as he describes the creation of our perception(s). BUT - and this is big - I feel like a lot of people who really embrace him come off as pretentious at best, and I don't think Estés is at the "best" level. I might have gone into the book more prepared if I'd known how heavily the author would focus on her own experiences and opinions, as filtered through a Jungian understanding of the world, and her sometimes rather narrow definitions of femininity and womanhood. Unfortunately, I was misled by the cover, the blurb, marketing, and recommendations into thinking this was a book about archetypes in folklore, fairy tales, and mythology. I still want to read that book. Instead, I feel like I got a decent dissertation from someone who dualed in philosophy and gender studies.