A review by mhmrose
Heroines by Kate Zambreno

emotional informative medium-paced

5.0

Okay, this book was absolutely amazing! After a slow start (about 1/5 in) I ate this up. Zambreno's feminist blog posts-turned-book is a rollercoaster of emotions for the women she speaks of and the hidden histories behind their myths;

Zelda Fitzgerald, her literary career cut short by men (including her husband) and her unfortunate death in an asylum; Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot's mental health problems ignored by her husband and incarceration in an asylum where she, unfortunately, dies alone with only her husband's "supposed" reaction that is mythologised as him losing his true love; Sylvia Plath who battled her mental health and bravely penned them in her novel and poems but is more remembered for her passing; and Virginia Woolf and her suicide that left a hole in the Bloomsbury and literary society of the 1920s.

Focusing on the Modernists: on the wives of authors, who were writers, themselves, but placed in the shadows of their husbands who "reinvented" eras of writing, Heroines argues for these literary gems whose works are beautiful in their own rights and should be read.

Zambreno is a definite must-read feminist writer who blends history and opinions into a thought-provoking book. If I had the chance to read again, I would in a heartbeat. Heroines is a must-read for anyone interested in literary women writers, feminism, feminist theory or an alternate type of writing.