The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin, Peter Straub Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Stepford Wives
Book Review: Watch the (Original) Movie Instead!
Summary: 3 Stars
I will admit that I had no idea there was a book belonging to The Stepford Wives until I stumbled across a used copy for a bit of pocket change. I fell in love with the 1975 film version and left the theater with a bad taste in my mouth after the 2004 remake (an abomination!). The original book version falls somewhere in between.
Written during the height of the second wave of feminism, Levin has an independent and "liberated" Joanne move to suburban Stepford to escape the hustle, bustle, and crime of the city. The women all appear as actors from detergent ads and when her friend Bobbi turns into one of them - Joanne gets suspicious. It's a bit of a pseudo-feminist portrayal with name dropping of Millet, Friedan, and Steinem but without a lot of feminist discourse, antics, thought - anything - to back it up.
It's a very short read, only a bit over a hundred pages and if you get the opportunity it's a decent page turner. But if you find yourself with an afternoon to kill I more highly suggest renting the 1975 classic and getting yourself a bowl of popcorn.
Book Review: What would life be like if women were perfect?
Summary: 5 Stars
What if life was perfect?Does it mean we'd be insane? Or happy? This book leads one into the world of television-commercial perfection, the ultimate celebration and triumph of our consumer oriented society, and suggests such wonderful fulfillment would leave us totally insane. We're human because of our faults; getting things right every now and then is a rare delight, not a habit.
In the years since the book and the movie originally appeared, it's become a cult classic for gay and lesbian audiences. Honestly. In other words, the so-called "feminist" movement is as sexist, blinkered and hypocritical as most prejudices the so-called "male" culture has ever developed. Geeeee . . . . . I guess we're all human, after all.
There's an old test for prejudice, "How would you like it if THAT applied to you, rather than someone else?" On that basis, don't tell me that women couldn't identify with "perfect" men. If you have any doubts, read a couple of "romance" novels -- there's some 18 million printed every month -- and tell me if the male heroes aren't masculine clones of the perfect housewives portrayed in this book.
In other words, it deals with a very human condition -- what would we do if confronted with perfection? That, of course, is the proposition offered by almost every advertisement and commercial ever produced; use this "product" to make your life better. In Genesis the answer comes in two and one-half chapters, "We'd mess it up."
Of course, Genesis dealt with an apple. This novel substitutes the perfect woman for an apple, which supposedly raises the stakes considerably for the average male. Just how would a man react if he met a perfect woman? What is the perfect woman? One whose bra size (measured in centimeters) matches her IQ ? In other words, it's a savage satire of our media-driven society in which youth, beauty and happiness all come from a bottle.
Does happiness depend on bra size? And, in the case of a woman, whether a man drives a Dodge Viper or a Dodge Neon? After you read this book, you'll never again look at a commercial or advertisement without laughing. Maybe it's just as well the latest film version treats the whole thing as a joke. Ideas can be disturbing, such as the thougtht that our consumer society just may be insane.
Savage, biting, clever, frightening -- it's a great book.
Book Review: a special story
Summary: 4 Stars
At first I thought that the Stepford Wives was a boring book. I didn't like the story because it was a bad and unreal story. But after the first 30 pages I liked to read it. It was interesting and I always asked myself how it will end! For every Monday we had to read a few pages and I always read the pages very quickly and I liked to read on. I think it`s a simple story but the story is really thrilling. My favourite person of this book is Joanna because she know that something is wrong in Stepford and she try to find it out with the help of Bobby, her friend. At the end she know that she has become a robot herself. But she can't do anything against this horrible idea of the Men's Association. I like the whole book but I prefer stories with happy endings. So it's not the perfect novel for me. That's the reason for the four stars.Book Review: a strange story
Summary: 4 Stars
I have read the book "The Stepford Wives" in English at school. We had to read a few pages every week. At the beginning of the book, I thought: ?What a nonsense!" When I didn't have to read more, I stopped reading. But I did continue and I must say now I changed my opinion. After the first ten or twenty pages the story became very thrilling. The story is simple. Joanna Eberhart, including her husband and her two children move from a big city to Stepford, a little rural town. The women there are very strange and they are only interested in housework. But Joanna finds a friend, called Bobby, who is not interested in housework either. But then, Bobby has a second honeymoon with her husband, and when she returns she has changed like the other housewives, too. What happened?
Book Review: a strange story
Summary: 4 Stars
I have read the book "The Stepford Wives" in English at school. We had to read a few pages every week. At the beginning of the book, I thought: ?What a nonsense!" When I didn't have to read more, I stopped reading. But I did continue and I must say now I changed my opinion. After the first ten or twenty pages the story became very thrilling. The story is simple. Joanna Eberhart, including her husband and her two children move from a big city to Stepford, a little rural town. The women there are very strange and they are only interested in housework. But Joanna finds a friend, called Bobby, who is not interested in housework either. But then, Bobby has a second honeymoon with her husband, and when she returns she has changed like the other housewives, too. What happened?