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A review by dobbsthedog
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
1.0
I did not enjoy this book. I guess the premise was fine, but I didn’t like that there was no resolution, that it would appear an entire community of women are being murdered and replaced by “perfect” robots.
There were certain aspects of the book that haven’t aged well; “I want my kids to meet some Black people!”. Yikes.
Also, this is very much a book that’s supposed to be from a woman’s POV that is very clearly written by a man. Any time they are talking about sex it feels really off, the way anytime a new female character is introduced she’s described as being attractive, the way every single man in this community apparently has the exact same idea of what their “perfect” woman is (large, pushed up breasts, small waist, small ass, lots of makeup).
With the way the book ended, with no resolution, it really just gave the impression that it doesn’t matter what you do (as a woman), all that men want are “prefect” wives who only care about keeping the house clean. Maybe I’m missing some nuance here, but that’s what I’m getting from this. That even if you’re strong, independent, intelligent, you’re just going to end up a wife who spends her entire day cleaning.
For how short the book was, I was surprised by the amount of sex in it? Nothing graphic, but lots of discussion on it, and it is very much not what I would consider to be a sex positive book. One of the husbands is said to be quite kinky, and this is seen as this terrible thing that the wife must endure. And this is before she’s replaced with a housework robot! Again, this is likely something that just hasn’t aged well, but I really didn’t like the idea that wives are portrayed as just being there to be of service to their husbands.
Overall, didn’t like any of it, would not read again.
There were certain aspects of the book that haven’t aged well; “I want my kids to meet some Black people!”. Yikes.
Also, this is very much a book that’s supposed to be from a woman’s POV that is very clearly written by a man. Any time they are talking about sex it feels really off, the way anytime a new female character is introduced she’s described as being attractive, the way every single man in this community apparently has the exact same idea of what their “perfect” woman is (large, pushed up breasts, small waist, small ass, lots of makeup).
With the way the book ended, with no resolution, it really just gave the impression that it doesn’t matter what you do (as a woman), all that men want are “prefect” wives who only care about keeping the house clean. Maybe I’m missing some nuance here, but that’s what I’m getting from this. That even if you’re strong, independent, intelligent, you’re just going to end up a wife who spends her entire day cleaning.
For how short the book was, I was surprised by the amount of sex in it? Nothing graphic, but lots of discussion on it, and it is very much not what I would consider to be a sex positive book. One of the husbands is said to be quite kinky, and this is seen as this terrible thing that the wife must endure. And this is before she’s replaced with a housework robot! Again, this is likely something that just hasn’t aged well, but I really didn’t like the idea that wives are portrayed as just being there to be of service to their husbands.
Overall, didn’t like any of it, would not read again.