Book Bingo - Scary Women Author Square
2016 Book Club Read for Sept.
It took me three tries to make it though this book. Three times. This third time, I don't know what it was but after about 50 pages, I just didn't want to put the book down. This is slightly strange because the people are largely unlikable.
The novel has a frame story, and then presents the notebooks of the central character, Anna. The notebooks are a chronicle, perhaps, of her life (both fictional and real) and her mind. They are her attempt to break writer's block or a lack of desire to write. They are the Yellow Wallpaper in many ways.
In some ways, the book is about the modern Yellow Wallpaper because while Anna and her friend Molly are "free women" they aren't really free. Men and society who makes the women think they need men still control their lives in such a way. (For instance, there really isn't much difference between Tommy and his father).
The novel itself seems to be about confronting or coming to terms with fear - be it of madness, life, or the lack of life. Perhaps that is way it is engrossing.
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