What do you think?
Rate this book
Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own
Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Memoir & Autobiography (2015)A bold, original, moving book that will inspire fanatical devotion and ignite debate.
Whom to marry, and when will it happen - these two questions define every woman's existence. So begins Spinster, a revelatory and slyly erudite look at the pleasures and possibilities of remaining single. Using her own experiences as a starting point, journalist and cultural critic Kate Bolick invites us into her carefully considered, passionately lived life, weaving together the past and present to examine why she - along with over 100 million American women, whose ranks keep growing - remains unmarried.
This unprecedented demographic shift, Bolick explains, is the logical outcome of hundreds of years of change that has neither been fully understood, nor appreciated. Spinster introduces a cast of pioneering women from the last century whose genius, tenacity, and flair for drama have emboldened Bolick to fashion her life on her own terms: columnist Neith Boyce, essayist Maeve Brennan, social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton. By animating their unconventional ideas and choices, Bolick shows us that contemporary debates about settling down, and having it all, are timeless - the crucible upon which all thoughtful women have tried for centuries to forge a good life.
Intellectually substantial and deeply personal, Spinster is both an unreservedly inquisitive memoir and a broader cultural exploration that asks us to acknowledge the opportunities within ourselves to live authentically. Bolick offers us a way back into our own lives - a chance to see those splendid years when we were young and unencumbered, or middle-aged and finally left to our own devices, for what they really are: unbounded and our own to savor.
Whom to marry, and when will it happen - these two questions define every woman's existence. So begins Spinster, a revelatory and slyly erudite look at the pleasures and possibilities of remaining single. Using her own experiences as a starting point, journalist and cultural critic Kate Bolick invites us into her carefully considered, passionately lived life, weaving together the past and present to examine why she - along with over 100 million American women, whose ranks keep growing - remains unmarried.
This unprecedented demographic shift, Bolick explains, is the logical outcome of hundreds of years of change that has neither been fully understood, nor appreciated. Spinster introduces a cast of pioneering women from the last century whose genius, tenacity, and flair for drama have emboldened Bolick to fashion her life on her own terms: columnist Neith Boyce, essayist Maeve Brennan, social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton. By animating their unconventional ideas and choices, Bolick shows us that contemporary debates about settling down, and having it all, are timeless - the crucible upon which all thoughtful women have tried for centuries to forge a good life.
Intellectually substantial and deeply personal, Spinster is both an unreservedly inquisitive memoir and a broader cultural exploration that asks us to acknowledge the opportunities within ourselves to live authentically. Bolick offers us a way back into our own lives - a chance to see those splendid years when we were young and unencumbered, or middle-aged and finally left to our own devices, for what they really are: unbounded and our own to savor.
308 pages, Hardcover
First published April 21, 2015
642 people are currently reading
20.9k people want to read
About the author
Kate Bolick
8Ìýbooks273ÌýfollowersKate Bolick is a contributing editor for The Atlantic, freelance writer for ELLE, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal (among other publications), and host of "Touchstones at The Mount," an annual literary interview series at Edith Wharton's country estate, in Lenox, MA. Previously, she was executive editor of Domino, and a columnist for The Boston Globe Ideas Section.
Bolick has appeared on The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and numerous NPR programs across the country. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Bolick has appeared on The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and numerous NPR programs across the country. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,495 reviews
January 21, 2015
I'm a guy, and I loved this book. Because I understand all about women choosing not to marry.
Apparently.
Seriously though, Kate Bolick has written an insightful reflection of women's power to shape their own lives in the twenty-first century and, along the way, highlighted the many assumptions we make about women. Ever wonder why we ask women when they'll marry but only ask men if? The whole thing is framed as personal experience compared to the lives of five historic women writers who, in the main, lived inspirational solitary lives. A narrative device that always risks becoming a drag, and in not doing so testifies to Bolick's skill.
Because, ultimately, it starts with women but is about all of us. It's an ode to those who value their own time and own space in the world. And want to drop the stigma of spinsterhood, bachelorhood, and those other -hoods that labels enjoy giving us. It's a cry to be comfortable in your own self. Something that we could all benefit from.
Also on and .
Apparently.
Seriously though, Kate Bolick has written an insightful reflection of women's power to shape their own lives in the twenty-first century and, along the way, highlighted the many assumptions we make about women. Ever wonder why we ask women when they'll marry but only ask men if? The whole thing is framed as personal experience compared to the lives of five historic women writers who, in the main, lived inspirational solitary lives. A narrative device that always risks becoming a drag, and in not doing so testifies to Bolick's skill.
Because, ultimately, it starts with women but is about all of us. It's an ode to those who value their own time and own space in the world. And want to drop the stigma of spinsterhood, bachelorhood, and those other -hoods that labels enjoy giving us. It's a cry to be comfortable in your own self. Something that we could all benefit from.
Also on and .
January 19, 2015
Actual rating = 2.5
I am disappointed that I didn't like this book, as a few co-workers have read it and really enjoyed it, and there's nothing worse than being that one guy who just doesn't get it. But I just don't get it. Perhaps I had too high expectations going in, thinking of the reviews I've read and the possibility of what a book about spinsterhood could address - but I found this work mostly painful to get through. The author makes Carrie Bradshaw seem modest and self-effacing, and the whole book is so smarty-pants in tone and content that it actually made me feel bad about myself that I had only superficial experience with most of the literary and historical references made throughout. I don't want to feel bad about myself while reading, especially in a book where the key message is allowing the reader to be content with how and with whom they choose to live their life. I suspect the author has formatted the book this way so that it would be taken more seriously, considered not just as an exploration into her romantic history but as an actual case study, which is understandable, but it just went too far in the other direction and became a snooze. However, the most disappointing part to me was the lack of analysis on what it is like to be living as a single woman in this day and age. It is great to hear that there were trailblazing women in the 19th century, but what about now? What kind of reactions does the author get when she expresses her beliefs to friends, family, and co-workers? How does society treat single women vs. married women both in and out of the workplace? What are the emotional/financial/physical/social effects of being a woman alone for a large amount of life? Sadly, none of this was ever touched on, which may not have been the point of the book, but for me made it an unsubstantial and inconsequential read.
I am disappointed that I didn't like this book, as a few co-workers have read it and really enjoyed it, and there's nothing worse than being that one guy who just doesn't get it. But I just don't get it. Perhaps I had too high expectations going in, thinking of the reviews I've read and the possibility of what a book about spinsterhood could address - but I found this work mostly painful to get through. The author makes Carrie Bradshaw seem modest and self-effacing, and the whole book is so smarty-pants in tone and content that it actually made me feel bad about myself that I had only superficial experience with most of the literary and historical references made throughout. I don't want to feel bad about myself while reading, especially in a book where the key message is allowing the reader to be content with how and with whom they choose to live their life. I suspect the author has formatted the book this way so that it would be taken more seriously, considered not just as an exploration into her romantic history but as an actual case study, which is understandable, but it just went too far in the other direction and became a snooze. However, the most disappointing part to me was the lack of analysis on what it is like to be living as a single woman in this day and age. It is great to hear that there were trailblazing women in the 19th century, but what about now? What kind of reactions does the author get when she expresses her beliefs to friends, family, and co-workers? How does society treat single women vs. married women both in and out of the workplace? What are the emotional/financial/physical/social effects of being a woman alone for a large amount of life? Sadly, none of this was ever touched on, which may not have been the point of the book, but for me made it an unsubstantial and inconsequential read.
August 2, 2015
Reading the first half of this book, I felt like my soul was on fire. Here was another young woman, Kate, growing into herself through uncertainty and pain, becoming aware that she stays unhappily in relationships on the track to marriage because she needs to hit a female milestone, though it's not what she wants to do. She relishes having her own apartment, decries the (sexist) idea that winding up a bag or cat lady is the unhappiest fate possible, and admits that she's hesitant about having children because that would mean less time for herself. She also supplements her own story with the stories of five women from history -- Maeve Brennan, Neith Boyce, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman -- who made their own successes regardless of marriage (it's worth noting that at one point or another, all five of these women did marry).
It was as if this book was written to speak directly to me, I thought. For a lot of my life, I was very depressed by the feeling that I was failing to hit the same milestones other women were hitting. I've had many awkward, desperate crushes, needing the fairy tale ending it seemed all the other girls were getting when I couldn't even be bothered to talk to the object of my limerence. I've never cared about looking fashionable or beautiful and I've always struggled to feel worthy from not fitting the mold of how a woman "should" be (because when you don't care about fashion or beauty, you do become quite invisible in the world). Yet, whenever a man seemed to come along who did find me worthy, I felt claustrophobic about commitment and the idea of never having "me" time again, and I'd shut it down. There's something to be said for the fact that my longest relationship was with a man who never made me feel worthy or desirable. Much of our time together was, like a particularly dark episode of Seinfeld, me trying to "win" over a person who was even more distant than I was, and also very clearly using me, besides.
Since that relationship ended, I haven't been on one date. It has been 14 months. That time of self-searching has taught me a lot about myself, namely that I'm much happier when I'm allowing myself the freedom to be alone and to live on my own terms, not worried about hitting the marks I need to "by 30" in order to fit in. I can pass a whole weekend without speaking to another person, sometimes. I no longer think that means there is something wrong with me. Not worrying about fitting in has freed up my life and has made me a much happier, more generous person, more emotionally available to family and friends. I'm also beginning to realize that maybe I am not a person who was cut out for the ol' marriage/kids thing. Perhaps, like Neith Boyce, I'll meet someone I enjoy more than my solitude, but I have decided that it is not something I am going to seek out and force against my own instincts.
I have to admit, then, that I was dismayed by the end of Spinster when it became clear that Kate was not actually a spinster at all. She is in relationship after relationship for pretty much the entire book. She remarks that she "can barely walk down the street without winding up with a date" (I really can't think of why you'd humblebrag about this to your sisters in a book about living freely from cultural constructs including the male gaze, but hey, whatever). In her mid 30's, her friend has to put her on a convalescence from men (seriously) and it only lasts TWO WEEKS. I have a really hard time reconciling spinster manifesto with a woman who can't go without sex with a man for two weeks.
By the end of the book, Kate is again ensconced in a relationship of multiple years and makes a throwaway comment on the second to last page to the effect of "will we have kids? maybe, hard to say." Judging from other reviews, I am clearly not the only person who feels like she was pumped up over and over by this book, and then had the wool completely pulled over her eyes by its ending.
I'm giving Spinster four stars on the strength of the profiles of historical feminists, for the beginning part of Kate's journey, and for the spirit of advocating for spinsterhood, if not the actual practice of it. It would have been five, but given that this book is part memoir and Kate has consciously linked the example of her own life with the ideas she puts forward, I can't separate the author from the book. Is she a commitment-phobe? Maybe. Career woman, sure. Feminist, yes. Spinster....? No, I really don't think so.
It was as if this book was written to speak directly to me, I thought. For a lot of my life, I was very depressed by the feeling that I was failing to hit the same milestones other women were hitting. I've had many awkward, desperate crushes, needing the fairy tale ending it seemed all the other girls were getting when I couldn't even be bothered to talk to the object of my limerence. I've never cared about looking fashionable or beautiful and I've always struggled to feel worthy from not fitting the mold of how a woman "should" be (because when you don't care about fashion or beauty, you do become quite invisible in the world). Yet, whenever a man seemed to come along who did find me worthy, I felt claustrophobic about commitment and the idea of never having "me" time again, and I'd shut it down. There's something to be said for the fact that my longest relationship was with a man who never made me feel worthy or desirable. Much of our time together was, like a particularly dark episode of Seinfeld, me trying to "win" over a person who was even more distant than I was, and also very clearly using me, besides.
Since that relationship ended, I haven't been on one date. It has been 14 months. That time of self-searching has taught me a lot about myself, namely that I'm much happier when I'm allowing myself the freedom to be alone and to live on my own terms, not worried about hitting the marks I need to "by 30" in order to fit in. I can pass a whole weekend without speaking to another person, sometimes. I no longer think that means there is something wrong with me. Not worrying about fitting in has freed up my life and has made me a much happier, more generous person, more emotionally available to family and friends. I'm also beginning to realize that maybe I am not a person who was cut out for the ol' marriage/kids thing. Perhaps, like Neith Boyce, I'll meet someone I enjoy more than my solitude, but I have decided that it is not something I am going to seek out and force against my own instincts.
I have to admit, then, that I was dismayed by the end of Spinster when it became clear that Kate was not actually a spinster at all. She is in relationship after relationship for pretty much the entire book. She remarks that she "can barely walk down the street without winding up with a date" (I really can't think of why you'd humblebrag about this to your sisters in a book about living freely from cultural constructs including the male gaze, but hey, whatever). In her mid 30's, her friend has to put her on a convalescence from men (seriously) and it only lasts TWO WEEKS. I have a really hard time reconciling spinster manifesto with a woman who can't go without sex with a man for two weeks.
By the end of the book, Kate is again ensconced in a relationship of multiple years and makes a throwaway comment on the second to last page to the effect of "will we have kids? maybe, hard to say." Judging from other reviews, I am clearly not the only person who feels like she was pumped up over and over by this book, and then had the wool completely pulled over her eyes by its ending.
I'm giving Spinster four stars on the strength of the profiles of historical feminists, for the beginning part of Kate's journey, and for the spirit of advocating for spinsterhood, if not the actual practice of it. It would have been five, but given that this book is part memoir and Kate has consciously linked the example of her own life with the ideas she puts forward, I can't separate the author from the book. Is she a commitment-phobe? Maybe. Career woman, sure. Feminist, yes. Spinster....? No, I really don't think so.
April 30, 2015
So bad. "I did this and then I did that. One August I went to the beach and did other things. Then I was in the City, but it wasn't Massachusetts. It was bad, but I was growing. Girls care about marriage, but guys don't. Being on your own is OK! I did some more stuff and maybe I'll do more in the future." For 300 interminable pages.
May 18, 2015
What a disappointment. I had been eagerly anticipating the release of this book for extremely obvious reasons. Part of my disappointment is my own fault - what I expected is not at all what this book was. I was hoping for a book that would address cultural and societal expectations about women and marriage, what it's like to be a 30-something and 40-something single woman in different places, and social science research on spinsterhood as it relates to careers, families, retirement, etc. I am genuinely interested in all of those topics.
Instead, this was a meandering look at five historical spinsters and their lives, and I was profoundly disappointed by the author's approach. And in the end, it turns out she's partnered - what a coincidence that she got this book deal and then met the love of her life!!!! - so the point of that revelation is the exact moment when I wanted to fling the book into the street and let it be run over by a garbage truck. The book itself is not horrible - it is not poorly written and she did her research - but it is 100% not what I expected, nor what anyone I've discussed it with said they expected from it, and it could have been Life Syllabus material for me. Instead, blech.
Instead, this was a meandering look at five historical spinsters and their lives, and I was profoundly disappointed by the author's approach. And in the end, it turns out she's partnered - what a coincidence that she got this book deal and then met the love of her life!!!! - so the point of that revelation is the exact moment when I wanted to fling the book into the street and let it be run over by a garbage truck. The book itself is not horrible - it is not poorly written and she did her research - but it is 100% not what I expected, nor what anyone I've discussed it with said they expected from it, and it could have been Life Syllabus material for me. Instead, blech.
September 26, 2015
The short review: Occasionally interesting, but ultimately self-absorbed.
The details: I keep reading books that I think are going to be discussions of a subject when really they're about the author.
I read The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee because I thought it would be about Harper Lee. I was rewarded for my nosiness by learning everything I never wanted to know about Marja Mills, the author.
Similarly, I heard an interview with Kate Bolick on a book review podcast. She talked about the evolution of the word "spinster," the history of how unmarried women in America are treated, and some important "spinster" authors. I came to what I still think is the understandable conclusion that those were what this book would be about.
I mean, I have a copy of Marilyn Yalom's A History of the Wife. It is, quite literally, a history of what being married and female has meant in the Western world throughout recorded history. I figured Spinster would be a sort of bookend to that work.
Such a bookend is still needed. Bolick didn't feel like writing one.
Which is fine. She can write whatever kind of book she wants to. If she wants to write an autobiography and she can find a publisher, good on her.
I just wish she'd made it a bit clearer that this was a memoir with a certain slant, rather than a study of spinsterism.
To be fair, I did learn a lot about some authors I hadn't heard of, like Neith Boyce, and some I had heard of but didn't know much about, like Maeve Brennan. I added a lot of books to my "must read" list after finishing Spinster. (Considering what an out-of-control monster that list is, maybe I shouldn't be listing this as a positive. But I'm not willing to be cured of this particular addiction, so I'll just go with it.)
The problem is, I learned a lot more about an author I had no interest in whatsoever � specifically, Kate Bolick. Her autobiographical forays weren't nearly as tedious as Marja Mills', and she sounded like a really nice person in that interview. Still, I found myself asking this book time and time again, "Sweetie � why do you think I care?"
Speaking of people talking to writers who aren't actually in the same room with them: Bolick considers herself friends with the five female authors she focuses on in this book. The fact that they're dead just makes it that much easier for her to get away with routinely calling them by their first names.
Seriously � could we stop doing this, please? Could we all please FOR THE LOVE OF MY SANITY STOP referring to, say, Austen as "Jane" and Dickinson as "Emily"?
Look, I get it. There are authors who are so brilliant that they make you feel as if they're right there in the room with you, telling you a story you already know and at the same time can't wait to hear more of. They make you feel the way you did the first time (or maybe the last time) you fell in love: "This is it. This is THE ONE FOR ME."
I get it. I've been there.
And that's just it. We've ALL been there. The fact that you happened to notice � all by your little self! � that an author is amazing doesn't make you special. It certainly doesn't make you part of that author's inner circle. It means that the writer is a genius. You may feel you know her, but let me assure you: she doesn't know you. And when you call her by her first name, you're implying she does.
You're also not-so-coincidentally indulging in exactly the kind of disrespect female authors have suffered since there's been such a thing as a female author.
I know writers who are absolutely batty about Shakespeare. Norrie Epstein is so infatuated with the Bard, she wrote a whole book called The Friendly Shakespeare in an effort to convert more people to the cause.
You know what neither she nor any other author IN THE HISTORY OF THE FREAKIN' WORLD ever calls Shakespeare? William.
True fact: I homeschool my son and wanted him to grow up reasonably literate. I thought a good first step in that direction would be to make sure he didn't suffer from a widespread epidemic I call "fear of Shakespeare." Someone who knew how much I love his plays once gave me a small stuffed Shakespeare doll. When my son was little, I referred to this doll as "Billy." I made him talk, and I always made him sound drunk, and he frequently roared out for more cakes and ale.
"Stop yelling, Billy," my then-five-year-old-son would say. "You've had too much ale already."
Mission accomplished. My son spent his younger years absolutely infatuated with A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. He often asked if Ariel could please come over and give him magic lessons.
I wanted my son to have a comfortable relationship with The Bard, so I took him down a notch by referring to him by his first name.
Women writers, even the ones who win awards and write classic novels and get their stuff on required reading lists, are not exactly suffering from a surfeit of respect.
It would be nice if a writer like Kate Bolick, who identifies as a feminist and who actually has some good stuff to say on that subject, could consider setting a good example.
Kate � since I'm sure she won't mind me calling her that � refers to Edna St. Vincent Millay as Edna, Maeve Brennan as Maeve, and Neith Boyce as � well, I'm sure you can guess. She also implies that she has a chatty relationship with them, or possibly she thinks she's channeling them:
Maeve didn't get what all the fuss over sex was about. Sure, she said, she was no prude, but the men seemed to like it a lot better than she did. Neith argued that this was purely a historical-moment problem: practicing free love had made the men really good in bed; however, by Maeve's time, they'd all forgotten about the clitoris. Edna was skeptical: perhaps you prefer women?
Bwahaha.
I guess I should offer an award to anyone ballsy enough to brag that she began to experience a growing interest in the life and work of Edith Wharton, and "soon enough I was calling her Edith." Instead, I'm going to recommend that anyone who reads Wharton's autobiography and thinks she's on a first-name basis with the writer should see a doctor immediately. Or maybe just go in for a basic literacy test, because seriously those words on those pages do NOT mean what you think they mean.
Of course, I guess I shouldn't expect better from a writer who talks about how boring other people's dreams are and then proves it by taking three pages to describe a dream she had.
And I definitely shouldn't expect anything but on-the-page self-indulgence from a writer who'd hoped to be a professional poet and whose biggest objection to her own early efforts were that what she'd written didn't "remotely convey what I actually felt." If the poems you write are for your own pleasure or your therapist's use, that's important. If you want to go pro, shouldn't you be worrying less about your precious feelings and more about, I don't know, how GOOD your poems are?
Believe it or not, I started this review thinking I'd give this book three stars. I'm going to go ahead and give it two because I'm grateful for the book recommendations I gleaned from it.
And then I'm going to return it to the library (two days late, dang nab it) and get an early start on my anticipated New Year's resolution to ease up on the library stuff and start reading the books I already own. I'm thinking Marilyn Yalom's A History of the Wife might be a good start.
But if Yalom � may I call her Marilyn? � starts starts talking about her own married life...seriously, heads are going to roll.
The details: I keep reading books that I think are going to be discussions of a subject when really they're about the author.
I read The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee because I thought it would be about Harper Lee. I was rewarded for my nosiness by learning everything I never wanted to know about Marja Mills, the author.
Similarly, I heard an interview with Kate Bolick on a book review podcast. She talked about the evolution of the word "spinster," the history of how unmarried women in America are treated, and some important "spinster" authors. I came to what I still think is the understandable conclusion that those were what this book would be about.
I mean, I have a copy of Marilyn Yalom's A History of the Wife. It is, quite literally, a history of what being married and female has meant in the Western world throughout recorded history. I figured Spinster would be a sort of bookend to that work.
Such a bookend is still needed. Bolick didn't feel like writing one.
Which is fine. She can write whatever kind of book she wants to. If she wants to write an autobiography and she can find a publisher, good on her.
I just wish she'd made it a bit clearer that this was a memoir with a certain slant, rather than a study of spinsterism.
To be fair, I did learn a lot about some authors I hadn't heard of, like Neith Boyce, and some I had heard of but didn't know much about, like Maeve Brennan. I added a lot of books to my "must read" list after finishing Spinster. (Considering what an out-of-control monster that list is, maybe I shouldn't be listing this as a positive. But I'm not willing to be cured of this particular addiction, so I'll just go with it.)
The problem is, I learned a lot more about an author I had no interest in whatsoever � specifically, Kate Bolick. Her autobiographical forays weren't nearly as tedious as Marja Mills', and she sounded like a really nice person in that interview. Still, I found myself asking this book time and time again, "Sweetie � why do you think I care?"
Speaking of people talking to writers who aren't actually in the same room with them: Bolick considers herself friends with the five female authors she focuses on in this book. The fact that they're dead just makes it that much easier for her to get away with routinely calling them by their first names.
Seriously � could we stop doing this, please? Could we all please FOR THE LOVE OF MY SANITY STOP referring to, say, Austen as "Jane" and Dickinson as "Emily"?
Look, I get it. There are authors who are so brilliant that they make you feel as if they're right there in the room with you, telling you a story you already know and at the same time can't wait to hear more of. They make you feel the way you did the first time (or maybe the last time) you fell in love: "This is it. This is THE ONE FOR ME."
I get it. I've been there.
And that's just it. We've ALL been there. The fact that you happened to notice � all by your little self! � that an author is amazing doesn't make you special. It certainly doesn't make you part of that author's inner circle. It means that the writer is a genius. You may feel you know her, but let me assure you: she doesn't know you. And when you call her by her first name, you're implying she does.
You're also not-so-coincidentally indulging in exactly the kind of disrespect female authors have suffered since there's been such a thing as a female author.
I know writers who are absolutely batty about Shakespeare. Norrie Epstein is so infatuated with the Bard, she wrote a whole book called The Friendly Shakespeare in an effort to convert more people to the cause.
You know what neither she nor any other author IN THE HISTORY OF THE FREAKIN' WORLD ever calls Shakespeare? William.
True fact: I homeschool my son and wanted him to grow up reasonably literate. I thought a good first step in that direction would be to make sure he didn't suffer from a widespread epidemic I call "fear of Shakespeare." Someone who knew how much I love his plays once gave me a small stuffed Shakespeare doll. When my son was little, I referred to this doll as "Billy." I made him talk, and I always made him sound drunk, and he frequently roared out for more cakes and ale.
"Stop yelling, Billy," my then-five-year-old-son would say. "You've had too much ale already."
Mission accomplished. My son spent his younger years absolutely infatuated with A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. He often asked if Ariel could please come over and give him magic lessons.
I wanted my son to have a comfortable relationship with The Bard, so I took him down a notch by referring to him by his first name.
Women writers, even the ones who win awards and write classic novels and get their stuff on required reading lists, are not exactly suffering from a surfeit of respect.
It would be nice if a writer like Kate Bolick, who identifies as a feminist and who actually has some good stuff to say on that subject, could consider setting a good example.
Kate � since I'm sure she won't mind me calling her that � refers to Edna St. Vincent Millay as Edna, Maeve Brennan as Maeve, and Neith Boyce as � well, I'm sure you can guess. She also implies that she has a chatty relationship with them, or possibly she thinks she's channeling them:
Maeve didn't get what all the fuss over sex was about. Sure, she said, she was no prude, but the men seemed to like it a lot better than she did. Neith argued that this was purely a historical-moment problem: practicing free love had made the men really good in bed; however, by Maeve's time, they'd all forgotten about the clitoris. Edna was skeptical: perhaps you prefer women?
Bwahaha.
I guess I should offer an award to anyone ballsy enough to brag that she began to experience a growing interest in the life and work of Edith Wharton, and "soon enough I was calling her Edith." Instead, I'm going to recommend that anyone who reads Wharton's autobiography and thinks she's on a first-name basis with the writer should see a doctor immediately. Or maybe just go in for a basic literacy test, because seriously those words on those pages do NOT mean what you think they mean.
Of course, I guess I shouldn't expect better from a writer who talks about how boring other people's dreams are and then proves it by taking three pages to describe a dream she had.
And I definitely shouldn't expect anything but on-the-page self-indulgence from a writer who'd hoped to be a professional poet and whose biggest objection to her own early efforts were that what she'd written didn't "remotely convey what I actually felt." If the poems you write are for your own pleasure or your therapist's use, that's important. If you want to go pro, shouldn't you be worrying less about your precious feelings and more about, I don't know, how GOOD your poems are?
Believe it or not, I started this review thinking I'd give this book three stars. I'm going to go ahead and give it two because I'm grateful for the book recommendations I gleaned from it.
And then I'm going to return it to the library (two days late, dang nab it) and get an early start on my anticipated New Year's resolution to ease up on the library stuff and start reading the books I already own. I'm thinking Marilyn Yalom's A History of the Wife might be a good start.
But if Yalom � may I call her Marilyn? � starts starts talking about her own married life...seriously, heads are going to roll.
Read
November 10, 2017I jokingly picked this up the week of my younger sister’s wedding but pretty quickly fell in love with the author’s lyrical prose, unapologetic independence, and collection of literary role models. Marriage and relationships are still the default for women, even if they aren’t a financial necessity for all women anymore. I’m still a hardcore romance fan and a (hopefully not hopeless) believer in true love, but I enjoyed reading an intelligent and beautifully-written book that contemplated an underrepresented narrative for a female life.
� Alison Doherty
from The Best Books We Read In June 2017:
____________________
I had some reservations about this book. I went into it a bit worried that it would be all, “marriage = bad; single = good,� but that wasn’t the case at all. Based on the author’s experiences of being a non-married woman, working and dating and coupling (however temporarily) in New York, this book takes a look specifically at the idea of what a “spinster� is, both in its current use and in historical context. But this book’s title plays at Virginia Woolf’s famous book A Room of One’s Own, and like Woolf’s work, Kate Bolick pays special attention to the life of the woman writer, investigating influential women in her reading life and how they navigated career, marriage, and life. In the end, Bolick manages to land in a place of hope, kindness, and independence for all women � married, single, divorced, widowed � and calls for all of us (women) to redefine and embrace spinsterhood, to figure out what we need and to claim it as our own. � Dana Staves
From Best Books We Read in December:
� Alison Doherty
from The Best Books We Read In June 2017:
____________________
I had some reservations about this book. I went into it a bit worried that it would be all, “marriage = bad; single = good,� but that wasn’t the case at all. Based on the author’s experiences of being a non-married woman, working and dating and coupling (however temporarily) in New York, this book takes a look specifically at the idea of what a “spinster� is, both in its current use and in historical context. But this book’s title plays at Virginia Woolf’s famous book A Room of One’s Own, and like Woolf’s work, Kate Bolick pays special attention to the life of the woman writer, investigating influential women in her reading life and how they navigated career, marriage, and life. In the end, Bolick manages to land in a place of hope, kindness, and independence for all women � married, single, divorced, widowed � and calls for all of us (women) to redefine and embrace spinsterhood, to figure out what we need and to claim it as our own. � Dana Staves
From Best Books We Read in December:
December 6, 2016
What’s not to like about Spinster? Apparently quite a lot, if its Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ reviews are any indication. I think there’s a perception that this is supposed to be a sort of generalized book about single women as a group, and if you go into it expecting that, you’ll be disappointed (and should probably try Rebecca Traister’s excellent All the Single Ladies instead). No, Spinster is actually a very personal book, a memoir of Kate Bolick’s own experiences as a single woman and the literary role models who helped her recognize the kind of life she wanted to lead. True, none of these role models (Edna St. Vincent Millay and Charlotte Perkins Gilman among them) were spinsters by the official definition, but they shared a certain independence, a certain originality, a certain freedom, and a certain creativity that Bolick wants for herself. Bolick and I are not very much alike, but I still related to a lot of this, and I loved how bookish it was. Spinster is one of those books that opens your mind and reminds you that there are endless ways to live a life. I found it thrilling and comforting at the same time.
There seems to be some debate over whether or not Bolick herself, who always seems to have a man around in one way or another, actually qualifies as a spinster. I’ll admit that I asked this myself a few times while reading. But I think she’s actually a perfect embodiment of where we are now as a culture. These things are often complicated; we can crave both independence and love and companionship, and the way we balance out these longings can be tricky, a process of trial and error. It’s one of the most modern of predicaments a woman can find herself in, and I can’t and won’t fault Bolick for not navigating it exactly the way I’ve been. There’s a lot to be learned from those who view the same situation from a somewhat different angle. Spinster really isn’t the most radical book out there on these topics, but I cannot deny that I loved every minute of it, and I was sorry when it was over. In a readerly sense, Bolick made the perfect companion.
There seems to be some debate over whether or not Bolick herself, who always seems to have a man around in one way or another, actually qualifies as a spinster. I’ll admit that I asked this myself a few times while reading. But I think she’s actually a perfect embodiment of where we are now as a culture. These things are often complicated; we can crave both independence and love and companionship, and the way we balance out these longings can be tricky, a process of trial and error. It’s one of the most modern of predicaments a woman can find herself in, and I can’t and won’t fault Bolick for not navigating it exactly the way I’ve been. There’s a lot to be learned from those who view the same situation from a somewhat different angle. Spinster really isn’t the most radical book out there on these topics, but I cannot deny that I loved every minute of it, and I was sorry when it was over. In a readerly sense, Bolick made the perfect companion.
May 4, 2015
In the first 100 pages of Spinster, Kate Bolick writes, “I’ve always known that a book will find you when you need to be found� and she couldn’t be more right. Oddly enough, for me, it was her book.
I was looking forward to reading Spinster long before I had a copy in my hands. I was fascinated by the story of a modern, intelligent woman explaining her decision to remain single, never marry, and live her life on her own, perhaps unconventional, terms. Also, the gorgeous cover helped too (LOVE that neon!)
I knew I loved the book after only a few pages, when this gorgeous passage graced the page:
“But when I set my suitcase on the floor and started to undress, my ears adjusted to that seductive hush unique to libraries and childhood bedrooms—a busy, almost trance-inducing silence, a noiseless hum, as if all those abandoned books and journals buzzed on an alternative frequency straining to be tapped—until slowly the hush became reality itself.�
To me, this is perfection. I could close my eyes and feel the buzz in my own childhood bedroom, but I could also easily picture Bolick herself, standing among the innocence of her own room and contemplating her future.
What followed were many more pages of carefully crafted, introspective thoughts on living life the way you choose to. When Bolick’s beloved mother passes away, she is catapulted into both intense grief and a call to action. Armed with her books, her true love, she summons inspiration from five of her literary heroes: women who have lived bravely; consistently demanding more from themselves and their lives.
I carted this book around for weeks, slowly digesting idea after idea. Bolick does some fantastic behavioural research and combines it with historical fact and biographical insight. Friends and coworkers often asked why I lovingly toted around a book about choosing to be unmarried with an engagement ring on my hand. It’s because what Bolick defends is not a woman’s right to not marry, but a woman’s right to decide the path of her own life.
Perhaps what I recognized most about myself in those pages were two things: the ability to find yourself within literary works and people, and also the desire for time alone. I am a very solitary person. Though I am extremely sociable and chatty, my recharge is hours of silence and alone time. It’s both how I unwind and how I get myself back in order. Bolick does homage to “alone time� like no one I’ve seen before; everything from decorating your space to represent you, to coming home from a high energy evening to a quiet solace. I totally get that, and the people who love me do too. Unlike Bolick, I do still achieve this time and spacial quiet with a man in my life, but I completely respect her plans not to.
Though Bolick and I lead very different lives, I related to her in so many ways, and that’s what made this book so special to me. There were things I didn’t agree with (like the references to marriage being a way to solve the issue of paying bills on your own) but there were so many things I did (like the love of solitary time and the ability to use books to guide yourself in a time of need).
Not only did Spinster make me relish in the glory of how books can shape your life, it also added a ton of books to my to-read list. Of the five literary ladies Bolick speaks about, you will most likely recognize a few, and a few others may be complete enigmas. I became fascinated with her portrayal of Maeve Brennan, and quickly ordered myself a collection of her New Yorker columns. (I won’t tell you much else about her because Bolick does it too well for me to even attempt to replicate.)
So all of that to say, this book will be a game-changer. Whether you agree with Bolick and fall in love with Spinster like I did, or if you whole-heartedly disagree, you will want to talk about this. And I can’t wait to be there when you do.
I was looking forward to reading Spinster long before I had a copy in my hands. I was fascinated by the story of a modern, intelligent woman explaining her decision to remain single, never marry, and live her life on her own, perhaps unconventional, terms. Also, the gorgeous cover helped too (LOVE that neon!)
I knew I loved the book after only a few pages, when this gorgeous passage graced the page:
“But when I set my suitcase on the floor and started to undress, my ears adjusted to that seductive hush unique to libraries and childhood bedrooms—a busy, almost trance-inducing silence, a noiseless hum, as if all those abandoned books and journals buzzed on an alternative frequency straining to be tapped—until slowly the hush became reality itself.�
To me, this is perfection. I could close my eyes and feel the buzz in my own childhood bedroom, but I could also easily picture Bolick herself, standing among the innocence of her own room and contemplating her future.
What followed were many more pages of carefully crafted, introspective thoughts on living life the way you choose to. When Bolick’s beloved mother passes away, she is catapulted into both intense grief and a call to action. Armed with her books, her true love, she summons inspiration from five of her literary heroes: women who have lived bravely; consistently demanding more from themselves and their lives.
I carted this book around for weeks, slowly digesting idea after idea. Bolick does some fantastic behavioural research and combines it with historical fact and biographical insight. Friends and coworkers often asked why I lovingly toted around a book about choosing to be unmarried with an engagement ring on my hand. It’s because what Bolick defends is not a woman’s right to not marry, but a woman’s right to decide the path of her own life.
Perhaps what I recognized most about myself in those pages were two things: the ability to find yourself within literary works and people, and also the desire for time alone. I am a very solitary person. Though I am extremely sociable and chatty, my recharge is hours of silence and alone time. It’s both how I unwind and how I get myself back in order. Bolick does homage to “alone time� like no one I’ve seen before; everything from decorating your space to represent you, to coming home from a high energy evening to a quiet solace. I totally get that, and the people who love me do too. Unlike Bolick, I do still achieve this time and spacial quiet with a man in my life, but I completely respect her plans not to.
Though Bolick and I lead very different lives, I related to her in so many ways, and that’s what made this book so special to me. There were things I didn’t agree with (like the references to marriage being a way to solve the issue of paying bills on your own) but there were so many things I did (like the love of solitary time and the ability to use books to guide yourself in a time of need).
Not only did Spinster make me relish in the glory of how books can shape your life, it also added a ton of books to my to-read list. Of the five literary ladies Bolick speaks about, you will most likely recognize a few, and a few others may be complete enigmas. I became fascinated with her portrayal of Maeve Brennan, and quickly ordered myself a collection of her New Yorker columns. (I won’t tell you much else about her because Bolick does it too well for me to even attempt to replicate.)
So all of that to say, this book will be a game-changer. Whether you agree with Bolick and fall in love with Spinster like I did, or if you whole-heartedly disagree, you will want to talk about this. And I can’t wait to be there when you do.
March 24, 2019
Interesting, engaging, well-written. And I learned a lot.
4,5*
Re-read in March 2019. Still loving it.
4,5*
Re-read in March 2019. Still loving it.
April 20, 2016
The best advice my mother ever gave me was to wait until I was 30 to get married. My mom passed away when I was a teenager so I never really go to talk to her about this as an adult, but it’s something that always stuck with me. And when I recently got married � a month before I turned 31 � I looked back and realized that she was 100% totally right.
For a long time, I thought I was going to marry the guy that I dated from the age of 17 to the age of 25. He’s a perfectly lovely individual, but not marrying him was the best decision I think I’ve ever made. I didn’t know what the fuck I wanted or needed out of life when I was in my early 20s and molding my life so that we could be together would have never worked. Being able to take the time to figure all of that stuff out on my own for a few years was so good for my personal development. I was able to do things I never would have been able to do if I’d been trying to balance it all with a relationship (and I’d tried to balance it for a while � that did not work). Doing those things helped me become the most fully formed version of myself that I could become, and it in turn helped me become a better partner for my eventual husband.
I’m not a religious person, so marriage doesn’t hold a Sacred place in my life. Honestly, it so far hasn’t changed my relationship with my husband (or his family) really at all. We’d been living together prior to even becoming engaged. He’d moved to a new state to support my career goals and living together just made the most financial sense. We’d opened joint banking accounts, merged insurance policies, bought new furniture, divvied up the household chores, contributed equally to our bills, figured out how to split the holidays between our families � all without a ring or a legal declaration. I knew that we were wholly committed to one another and that we were both in it for the long haul for a whole host of reasons that had nothing to do with having a wedding. I think that getting married has really only changed the way other people look at our relationship and sometimes I feel a little resentful about that.
While part of a cohabitating-but-not-engaged couple, I was pulled into a conversation between two coworkers. One was a newly married dude and the other was herself freshly engaged. They were debating some sort of etiquette or boundary associated with relationships and the guy turned to me and said, “Jess, I know you guys aren’t 100% yet but what do you think?� I was absolutely livid (and it still irks me to this day). Who was this guy to determine how committed my relationship was?
It was a guy who hadn’t even spent the night with his wife before they were married, let alone do all of that other stuff that I’d already done with my boyfriend. His own experience hewed so closely to tradition that I guess he just couldn’t fathom that other people’s relationships were different? I’d kept telling this guy that my boyfriend and I wouldn’t even consider marriage until the boyfriend got a job (he’d quit his to relocate with me for mine, after a brief stint doing long-distance). So, naturally, the second the boyfriend was hired the coworker said to me, "That means you can get engaged now." This guy was literally more concerned with it than the two of us were. Making it legal made it more simple for us, not more official, but I definitely felt an intense pressure to want to get married. I felt like I was expected to want it, and any attempt to go against that grain was viewed with intense skepticism.
So even though I am thrilled that we got to have a beautiful wedding day with our friends and family, I don’t see marriage as a necessary step for personal fulfillment or even the ability to make a lifelong commitment to a partner. Do it if you want to, not because you have to. I do, however, think that it’s incredibly important for women to take time to experience life on their own before settling down.
So it was that mindset that drove me to pick up Kate Bolick’s Spinster as a newly married lady. Bolick is a writer in her early 40s who, despite having had several long-term relationships, has made a conscious decision that she’s not interested in getting married. She wrote this book to examine the social pressures that women face regarding marriage as the ultimate measure of success. The book is a little bit memoir � examining the factors and circumstances that led her to her own life � but it’s primarily a series of tributes to the historical figures that Bolick describes as “awakeners.� These are other women � primarily writers from the 19th and early 20th centuries � for whom marriage was not a priority. Bolick looks at the cultural impact each woman made, as well as the reasons why she admires each woman. Many of the women did ultimately decide to marry much later in life that was typically considered normal, and Bolick also takes the time to examine how this affected those women.
I feel like Bolick’s primary argument is that the second-wave desire to “have it all� has put undue pressure on women to, well, have it all, in a way that men don’t face. Women who want careers are pressured to find a way to balance that with marriage and family, and they have to succeed at both. But trying to balance both often means that at least one suffers from the fact that you’re focusing energy on the other, too. Her personal priority derives personal growth from career success that she believes she cannot achieve if she is also putting energy into making a marriage work. We shouldn't be pressuring women to conform to any standard -- whether it's prioritizing marriage, prioritizing career, or trying to have it all.
It’s important, I think, to note that Bolcik’s work isn’t so much down on marriage as a knee-jerk assessment based on her title might suggest. She’s just resisting against the notion that whether or not to marry is a question that weighs heavily on women so much more than it does on men. It weighs so much more heavily on us and it suuuuucks. Andrew never had to deal with the “When are you getting married?� questions, he never had to deal with inquiries on what he wanted his wedding to be like (people seemed to forget that it wasn’t just my wedding), and he certainly never had to deal with the name-change decision that literally alters your identity in a big, semipermanent, legal way (I kept mine; he kept his).
One of my favorite aspects of this book is how Bolick looks back on her mother’s life and marriage and parenting style and reflects on how that affected her decision to avoid marriage. Her mother died relatively young, and Bolick always wondered if her mother had sacrificed her own personal goals in favor of having a husband because that’s What Women Did. She expressed a strong desire to live the kind of life that marriage and children prevented her mother from having. It made me long for the opportunity to find out why mother waited until she was 30 to get married, why she gave up her job for her husband, what her pre-marriage life was like. I wish I knew what inspired her to give me the best piece of advice I’ve ever received, and it’s more than a little devastating that I’ll never really know.
So in general, I enjoyed this book but I only rated it three stars instead of four because I was kind of underwhelmed by Bolick’s examination of her “awakeners.� Those women’s lives didn’t speak to me the way they spoke to Bolick. There’s nothing wrong with the fact that they spoke to Bolick � and I imagine they might speak to other women more than they did to me � it just meant that I was a little bored trudging through their biographies. I came to this book looking for a little more social analysis and research-driven thought along with more of Bolick’s personal history, and that’s not what it is. My disappointment may be as much my fault as it is Bolick’s, but I was a little disappointed nonetheless.
For a long time, I thought I was going to marry the guy that I dated from the age of 17 to the age of 25. He’s a perfectly lovely individual, but not marrying him was the best decision I think I’ve ever made. I didn’t know what the fuck I wanted or needed out of life when I was in my early 20s and molding my life so that we could be together would have never worked. Being able to take the time to figure all of that stuff out on my own for a few years was so good for my personal development. I was able to do things I never would have been able to do if I’d been trying to balance it all with a relationship (and I’d tried to balance it for a while � that did not work). Doing those things helped me become the most fully formed version of myself that I could become, and it in turn helped me become a better partner for my eventual husband.
I’m not a religious person, so marriage doesn’t hold a Sacred place in my life. Honestly, it so far hasn’t changed my relationship with my husband (or his family) really at all. We’d been living together prior to even becoming engaged. He’d moved to a new state to support my career goals and living together just made the most financial sense. We’d opened joint banking accounts, merged insurance policies, bought new furniture, divvied up the household chores, contributed equally to our bills, figured out how to split the holidays between our families � all without a ring or a legal declaration. I knew that we were wholly committed to one another and that we were both in it for the long haul for a whole host of reasons that had nothing to do with having a wedding. I think that getting married has really only changed the way other people look at our relationship and sometimes I feel a little resentful about that.
While part of a cohabitating-but-not-engaged couple, I was pulled into a conversation between two coworkers. One was a newly married dude and the other was herself freshly engaged. They were debating some sort of etiquette or boundary associated with relationships and the guy turned to me and said, “Jess, I know you guys aren’t 100% yet but what do you think?� I was absolutely livid (and it still irks me to this day). Who was this guy to determine how committed my relationship was?
It was a guy who hadn’t even spent the night with his wife before they were married, let alone do all of that other stuff that I’d already done with my boyfriend. His own experience hewed so closely to tradition that I guess he just couldn’t fathom that other people’s relationships were different? I’d kept telling this guy that my boyfriend and I wouldn’t even consider marriage until the boyfriend got a job (he’d quit his to relocate with me for mine, after a brief stint doing long-distance). So, naturally, the second the boyfriend was hired the coworker said to me, "That means you can get engaged now." This guy was literally more concerned with it than the two of us were. Making it legal made it more simple for us, not more official, but I definitely felt an intense pressure to want to get married. I felt like I was expected to want it, and any attempt to go against that grain was viewed with intense skepticism.
So even though I am thrilled that we got to have a beautiful wedding day with our friends and family, I don’t see marriage as a necessary step for personal fulfillment or even the ability to make a lifelong commitment to a partner. Do it if you want to, not because you have to. I do, however, think that it’s incredibly important for women to take time to experience life on their own before settling down.
So it was that mindset that drove me to pick up Kate Bolick’s Spinster as a newly married lady. Bolick is a writer in her early 40s who, despite having had several long-term relationships, has made a conscious decision that she’s not interested in getting married. She wrote this book to examine the social pressures that women face regarding marriage as the ultimate measure of success. The book is a little bit memoir � examining the factors and circumstances that led her to her own life � but it’s primarily a series of tributes to the historical figures that Bolick describes as “awakeners.� These are other women � primarily writers from the 19th and early 20th centuries � for whom marriage was not a priority. Bolick looks at the cultural impact each woman made, as well as the reasons why she admires each woman. Many of the women did ultimately decide to marry much later in life that was typically considered normal, and Bolick also takes the time to examine how this affected those women.
I feel like Bolick’s primary argument is that the second-wave desire to “have it all� has put undue pressure on women to, well, have it all, in a way that men don’t face. Women who want careers are pressured to find a way to balance that with marriage and family, and they have to succeed at both. But trying to balance both often means that at least one suffers from the fact that you’re focusing energy on the other, too. Her personal priority derives personal growth from career success that she believes she cannot achieve if she is also putting energy into making a marriage work. We shouldn't be pressuring women to conform to any standard -- whether it's prioritizing marriage, prioritizing career, or trying to have it all.
It’s important, I think, to note that Bolcik’s work isn’t so much down on marriage as a knee-jerk assessment based on her title might suggest. She’s just resisting against the notion that whether or not to marry is a question that weighs heavily on women so much more than it does on men. It weighs so much more heavily on us and it suuuuucks. Andrew never had to deal with the “When are you getting married?� questions, he never had to deal with inquiries on what he wanted his wedding to be like (people seemed to forget that it wasn’t just my wedding), and he certainly never had to deal with the name-change decision that literally alters your identity in a big, semipermanent, legal way (I kept mine; he kept his).
One of my favorite aspects of this book is how Bolick looks back on her mother’s life and marriage and parenting style and reflects on how that affected her decision to avoid marriage. Her mother died relatively young, and Bolick always wondered if her mother had sacrificed her own personal goals in favor of having a husband because that’s What Women Did. She expressed a strong desire to live the kind of life that marriage and children prevented her mother from having. It made me long for the opportunity to find out why mother waited until she was 30 to get married, why she gave up her job for her husband, what her pre-marriage life was like. I wish I knew what inspired her to give me the best piece of advice I’ve ever received, and it’s more than a little devastating that I’ll never really know.
So in general, I enjoyed this book but I only rated it three stars instead of four because I was kind of underwhelmed by Bolick’s examination of her “awakeners.� Those women’s lives didn’t speak to me the way they spoke to Bolick. There’s nothing wrong with the fact that they spoke to Bolick � and I imagine they might speak to other women more than they did to me � it just meant that I was a little bored trudging through their biographies. I came to this book looking for a little more social analysis and research-driven thought along with more of Bolick’s personal history, and that’s not what it is. My disappointment may be as much my fault as it is Bolick’s, but I was a little disappointed nonetheless.
February 27, 2016
Shame on me for judging a book by its cover. I saw this in the bookstore, it has a "single" girl on the cover laughing. With that picture and the title, I thought this would be a fun book about my life, my life as a strong, confident, independent, successful woman.
I was wrong. I did read the entire book, even though I hated it, I wanted to give her a chance to redeem herself. She did not. This is about the author's life, and she is not single, never has been. She has been in serious relationships since she was in high school. At one point she breaks up with a boyfriend and needs to have her brother drop his life and come live with her for 3 months. She moves home to Daddy's house twice. Even when she is single, she has to constantly date because she can not handle eating out by herself. She constantly implies that single woman are either lonely or introverts. She keeps referring to herself as an independent, but I could see the opposite. Her viewpoint to me, seems very 1950's. Especially when she starts talking about interior design, how did this get in here? Very random. One of my favorite parts is when she is talking about the interior design magazine she works for and she thinks, why are woman flipping through these magazines today, are they dreaming, maybe someday if they work hard enough, woman could afford this? Although the woman would never be able to enjoy it because they would have to work such long hours to afford it. So Kate Bolick believes women need a man in order to live a good life. She refers to this a lot, especially when talking about her writing, she is sacrificing her ability to write because she has not gotten married and therefore has to work.
When she is not talking about herself, she is talking about woman from other generations, she calls them spinsters, but they have all been married...and most of what she knows from them is because she read there biography's. Seems like a bit of a cheat.
She could have just titled this differently, made a different thesis. Maybe not focus on woman being single, but just focus on woman trying to earn the same rights as men. She touches on this at the very end, "The question now is something else entirely: Are women people yet?" Kate Bolick, you should have started with this one. I enjoyed a sentence in the same paragraph, " We've been evolving toward this new question ever since America was founded, albeit excruciating slowly and with many stops and start along the way." This is how I feel about this book!
Sorry Kate, but I am single (meaning, I have never, ever been married and that is a choice), I own my own company, I work 30-50 hours a week depending on the work load. I am not scared I am going to become a bag lady. My friends are 90% married. I love being social, I also love being with myself. I can afford the nicer things in life and truly enjoy my life!
I was wrong. I did read the entire book, even though I hated it, I wanted to give her a chance to redeem herself. She did not. This is about the author's life, and she is not single, never has been. She has been in serious relationships since she was in high school. At one point she breaks up with a boyfriend and needs to have her brother drop his life and come live with her for 3 months. She moves home to Daddy's house twice. Even when she is single, she has to constantly date because she can not handle eating out by herself. She constantly implies that single woman are either lonely or introverts. She keeps referring to herself as an independent, but I could see the opposite. Her viewpoint to me, seems very 1950's. Especially when she starts talking about interior design, how did this get in here? Very random. One of my favorite parts is when she is talking about the interior design magazine she works for and she thinks, why are woman flipping through these magazines today, are they dreaming, maybe someday if they work hard enough, woman could afford this? Although the woman would never be able to enjoy it because they would have to work such long hours to afford it. So Kate Bolick believes women need a man in order to live a good life. She refers to this a lot, especially when talking about her writing, she is sacrificing her ability to write because she has not gotten married and therefore has to work.
When she is not talking about herself, she is talking about woman from other generations, she calls them spinsters, but they have all been married...and most of what she knows from them is because she read there biography's. Seems like a bit of a cheat.
She could have just titled this differently, made a different thesis. Maybe not focus on woman being single, but just focus on woman trying to earn the same rights as men. She touches on this at the very end, "The question now is something else entirely: Are women people yet?" Kate Bolick, you should have started with this one. I enjoyed a sentence in the same paragraph, " We've been evolving toward this new question ever since America was founded, albeit excruciating slowly and with many stops and start along the way." This is how I feel about this book!
Sorry Kate, but I am single (meaning, I have never, ever been married and that is a choice), I own my own company, I work 30-50 hours a week depending on the work load. I am not scared I am going to become a bag lady. My friends are 90% married. I love being social, I also love being with myself. I can afford the nicer things in life and truly enjoy my life!
May 1, 2018
This was definitely an interesting read that revolves around the word spinster and how women have tried to break free from the norm through history. More specifically, Kate Bolick explores the role of the woman in today’s (and history’s) society, and she does that through 5 women who have inspired her through history to choose the path that she has chosen so far for herself: To stay independent and not marry, which is perfectly alright!
One thing that I struggled with a lot, though, while reading this book was the writing which seemed somewhat inaccessible to me. At times, it actually felt like reading a thesis, and it was therefore kind of hard to connect to the writing. But Kate Bolick gets her point across and I was oftentimes inspired by her discoveries - who knew that Charlotte Perkins was actually against marriage? However, some of Kate’s views and opinions I didn’t completely agree with, and sometimes it actually felt like Kate was still in the middle of her journey and didn’t really know how to feel comfortable in this unmarried role of hers.
Nevertheless, this was an interesting read that I do recommend if you have any interest in exploring the role of the woman and what is oftentimes expected from us, both today and in the past.
One thing that I struggled with a lot, though, while reading this book was the writing which seemed somewhat inaccessible to me. At times, it actually felt like reading a thesis, and it was therefore kind of hard to connect to the writing. But Kate Bolick gets her point across and I was oftentimes inspired by her discoveries - who knew that Charlotte Perkins was actually against marriage? However, some of Kate’s views and opinions I didn’t completely agree with, and sometimes it actually felt like Kate was still in the middle of her journey and didn’t really know how to feel comfortable in this unmarried role of hers.
Nevertheless, this was an interesting read that I do recommend if you have any interest in exploring the role of the woman and what is oftentimes expected from us, both today and in the past.
April 4, 2017
Y ahora, “dime, ¿qué pretendes hacer con esa vida tuya, única, salvaje y preciosa?�
February 16, 2016
Actual rating: 3.5 stars
I’m always interested in what motivates people—I know what moves me and find it fascinating to compare to other people’s experiences. That’s what drew me to Spinster. I remember having a few lonely times when I was in my 20s, and the epiphany at about age 28 when I realized that I would always be lonely unless I became a good companion to myself. I remember there was a passage in Kurt Vonnegut’s book Palm Sunday that I would read again and again as I processed this idea (note to self, re-read Palm Sunday soon). Literature pointed me in the right direction, as I always expect it to.
That’s another lure of this volume, the author’s examination of the lives & works of some notable single women writers: Neith Boyce, Maeve Brennan, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Edith Wharton. Not all of them spinsters by strict definition, but definitely with unconventional relationships for their times and a need for personal space in which to be creative. This has definitely pushed Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman up my “to read� list and added the other women to my radar for future reading adventures.
I also learned a name for something that I have been practicing for years: Living Apart Together. (Wasn’t it Katherine Hepburn who said, “Men and women should live next door and visit occasionally.� I don’t even want him next door, where he could keep much too close an eye on me!) I’m very much an introvert. I’ve had roommates over the years, but have spent the last 20 years living by myself and I can’t imagine letting anyone else permanently into my living space ever again. When people ask, I tell them there just isn’t enough closet space. (BTW, isn’t it amazing what people feel entitled to ask?) Visitors are welcome but departure dates have to be clear.
It’s strange how people treat you when you are on your own—I remember many years ago going camping by myself. As I was setting up camp, people on either side of me made pleasant conversation until they realized that I was a woman on her own. Suddenly, no one would make eye contact and conversation ceased. If it wasn’t for a campground employee who stopped by for a chat each day, I would have had no one at all to talk to. After two days of that nonsense, I phoned my parents & asked if they would care to join me. They were happy to share my camp space and suddenly neighbouring campers treated me like a human being again. People are weird.
But being single is no longer odd. More & more people are—widowed, divorced, never married, we are numerous. Someday, we may even be considered normal. Bring on that someday!
I’m always interested in what motivates people—I know what moves me and find it fascinating to compare to other people’s experiences. That’s what drew me to Spinster. I remember having a few lonely times when I was in my 20s, and the epiphany at about age 28 when I realized that I would always be lonely unless I became a good companion to myself. I remember there was a passage in Kurt Vonnegut’s book Palm Sunday that I would read again and again as I processed this idea (note to self, re-read Palm Sunday soon). Literature pointed me in the right direction, as I always expect it to.
That’s another lure of this volume, the author’s examination of the lives & works of some notable single women writers: Neith Boyce, Maeve Brennan, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Edith Wharton. Not all of them spinsters by strict definition, but definitely with unconventional relationships for their times and a need for personal space in which to be creative. This has definitely pushed Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman up my “to read� list and added the other women to my radar for future reading adventures.
I also learned a name for something that I have been practicing for years: Living Apart Together. (Wasn’t it Katherine Hepburn who said, “Men and women should live next door and visit occasionally.� I don’t even want him next door, where he could keep much too close an eye on me!) I’m very much an introvert. I’ve had roommates over the years, but have spent the last 20 years living by myself and I can’t imagine letting anyone else permanently into my living space ever again. When people ask, I tell them there just isn’t enough closet space. (BTW, isn’t it amazing what people feel entitled to ask?) Visitors are welcome but departure dates have to be clear.
It’s strange how people treat you when you are on your own—I remember many years ago going camping by myself. As I was setting up camp, people on either side of me made pleasant conversation until they realized that I was a woman on her own. Suddenly, no one would make eye contact and conversation ceased. If it wasn’t for a campground employee who stopped by for a chat each day, I would have had no one at all to talk to. After two days of that nonsense, I phoned my parents & asked if they would care to join me. They were happy to share my camp space and suddenly neighbouring campers treated me like a human being again. People are weird.
But being single is no longer odd. More & more people are—widowed, divorced, never married, we are numerous. Someday, we may even be considered normal. Bring on that someday!
April 4, 2015
I received my copy of Spinster through YPG’s Little Big Mouth program. As someone who has studied feminist theory and is quite aware of the stigma unmarried women still face in 2015, I was curious to see what “bold� and “original� ideas Kate Bolick could add to this continuing issue� and was then quite disappointed. For the reader who hasn’t taken courses in feminist studies, or isn’t up to date on current feminist theory, then perhaps this book might offer a more thoughtful reading. I was ecstatic to see Bolick bring lesser-known authors into light, and speak of their novels (which I hope to see readers will run out and read after finishing Spinster). However, I found Bolick’s choice of women interesting, since most of them did end up following conventional norms and marrying; many who faced not so happy endings (one of them even ending up on the streets with schizophrenia). So what is Bolick trying to say through the women she chose to highlight in her book? Having finished the book and after careful reflection I still can’t figure this out, and I don’t think Bolick truly knows either. Bolick’s book jumps back and forth (sometimes with smooth transitions but mostly not) between her own life and those of the women she comes to admire. As I read the sections that are basically Bolick’s memoir of her own life, I came to find her whiny and self pitying; spending money going out with friends after getting laid off and ignoring her bills and student loans (Bolick would’ve been better off comparing herself to Daisy Miller or Wharton’s Lilly Bart). I would’ve been much more interested if Bolick spent less time writing about her years struggling as a writer and dating men and focused more on the issue at hand: the history of the word spinster, focusing on some women who did successfully never get married and didn’t end up as bag ladies, and where do women stand today; not just in her own New York City bubble but all around the world. While I believe Bolick thinks she accomplished this in the book, I see it more as a memoir of her own dating and work life, with some historical facts thrown in and quick biographies for the writers she’s supposed to be giving equal attention to. In the end, I might recommend this book to the average reader (male or female) who has no idea about the struggles women face today who want to remain single, being called “old maid� and “spinster,� compared to the man’s “bachelor.� But for the reader who is already aware of these struggles and is looking for a new, insightful view of this issue� well, we’re still waiting.
April 22, 2015
I'm finding it hard to review SPINSTER: MAKING A LIFE OF ONE'S OWN. Kate Bolick is a gifted writer. She weaves together biography and sociology and history in a compelling blend. I certainly learned things about her five "awakeners" - Maeve Breenan, Neith Boyce, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilmore that I never knew.
Much of the book is devoted to biography of those five women, discussing how their writing and their unique, vivid lives inspired Bolick and helped her through tough times in her personal and professional life. Those chapters are absolutely fascinating, both for the literary criticism and the glimpses of feminist history through the past century or so.
However, they don't actually have much to do with spinsterhood, no matter how Bolick tries to spin it. All five women were married at some point in their life. They led unconventional lives and made art, both worth celebrating in their own way, but that does not make them unmarried women. Bolick has good taste in personal heroes, but that doesn't make them on topic.
I do like that Bolick acknowledges both the benefits and disadvantages of single life. You might get to decorate your apartment entirely as you like (and pick out the one with all the details you want), but you've got to pay for it on one income. It doesn't mean never dating. (Although for a book about life on one's own, Bolick writes a great deal about her many long-term relationships. She might not be married, but she's rarely single, and often seems like she doesn't know how to be.) She also acknowledges one of SPINSTER's weaknesses - that it can't even begin to approach the way that being permanently single is different for white women than black women, or for other women with less privileges.
SPINSTER is a wonderful story of Bolick's life and of the ways women have struggled to have their own independent, sufficient lives even within the bonds of matrimony and motherhood. It is not really about single women, as it promises, but it is a fascinating look at the changing ideals of femininity. I've also made a list of some new books and collected columns that I must read. I liked the book, but it definitely isn't the book I was sold on based on the covers.
Much of the book is devoted to biography of those five women, discussing how their writing and their unique, vivid lives inspired Bolick and helped her through tough times in her personal and professional life. Those chapters are absolutely fascinating, both for the literary criticism and the glimpses of feminist history through the past century or so.
However, they don't actually have much to do with spinsterhood, no matter how Bolick tries to spin it. All five women were married at some point in their life. They led unconventional lives and made art, both worth celebrating in their own way, but that does not make them unmarried women. Bolick has good taste in personal heroes, but that doesn't make them on topic.
I do like that Bolick acknowledges both the benefits and disadvantages of single life. You might get to decorate your apartment entirely as you like (and pick out the one with all the details you want), but you've got to pay for it on one income. It doesn't mean never dating. (Although for a book about life on one's own, Bolick writes a great deal about her many long-term relationships. She might not be married, but she's rarely single, and often seems like she doesn't know how to be.) She also acknowledges one of SPINSTER's weaknesses - that it can't even begin to approach the way that being permanently single is different for white women than black women, or for other women with less privileges.
SPINSTER is a wonderful story of Bolick's life and of the ways women have struggled to have their own independent, sufficient lives even within the bonds of matrimony and motherhood. It is not really about single women, as it promises, but it is a fascinating look at the changing ideals of femininity. I've also made a list of some new books and collected columns that I must read. I liked the book, but it definitely isn't the book I was sold on based on the covers.
December 26, 2017
Que una escritora se atreva a utilizar el término “solterona�, que siempre se ha usado con un tono despectivo/compasivo, para darle la vuelta y cambiar su connotación por algo más constructivo es digno de elogio. Si encima lo hace con una documentación excelente basada especialmente en sus cinco “despertadoras�, mujeres tan notables como Charlotte Perkins o Edith Wharton, da a la narración un toque “enciclopédico� estupendo, al rescatar a mujeres que forman parte de la literatura universal y del activismo feminista tan silenciados en institutos y universidades.
Sin embargo, y aquà le llega mi “pero�, el relato se convierte en ocasiones en una obra “chick-lit�, que precisamente la autora critica, más dirigida al público de éste subgénero de novela romántica (a saber, femenino, urbano, trabajador, neoyorquino, de entre veinte y treinta años), que a un publico feminista más general. Tantas idas y venidas con sus amores y desamores mandan un mensaje contradictorio, pues por un lado nos dice que la mujer debe liberarse y realizarse a sà misma por sà sola, pero por otro parece que no es capaz de hacerlo si no es teniendo una cita encadenada a otra.
A pesar de eso me ha parecido una lectura muy entretenida, ideal para ahondar en la biografÃa de sus “despertadorasâ€� y para profundizar en si a dÃa de hoy las mujeres ya somos realmente libres para tomar decisiones y realizarnos por nosotras mismas, sin atraparnos en los dilemas matrimonio-maternidad como formas necesarias de transcendencia.
Sin embargo, y aquà le llega mi “pero�, el relato se convierte en ocasiones en una obra “chick-lit�, que precisamente la autora critica, más dirigida al público de éste subgénero de novela romántica (a saber, femenino, urbano, trabajador, neoyorquino, de entre veinte y treinta años), que a un publico feminista más general. Tantas idas y venidas con sus amores y desamores mandan un mensaje contradictorio, pues por un lado nos dice que la mujer debe liberarse y realizarse a sà misma por sà sola, pero por otro parece que no es capaz de hacerlo si no es teniendo una cita encadenada a otra.
A pesar de eso me ha parecido una lectura muy entretenida, ideal para ahondar en la biografÃa de sus “despertadorasâ€� y para profundizar en si a dÃa de hoy las mujeres ya somos realmente libres para tomar decisiones y realizarnos por nosotras mismas, sin atraparnos en los dilemas matrimonio-maternidad como formas necesarias de transcendencia.
May 22, 2015
I wanted to like this book, I really did. As someone who is delightfully unattached in her 30s, the choice to remain unmarried and those who make it has always been something I enjoy talking about, thinking about, and reading about.
My biggest issue with this book is that I'm not 100% sure what point Bolick is trying to make. It felt like a book that started out as a memoir with a mission and fell short of actually accomplishing what it could have. She shares her stories and struggles of remaining a "spinster," and yet as I was reading, I couldn't help but feel that she was more in love with the idea of being alone and unmarried than the practical application. She doesn't seem to actually enjoy being alone, or want to remain single...she just seems nervous about a piece of paper tying her to someone else. To me, that screams "commitment issues," not "spinster."
That said, Bolick is a wonderful writer, and I enjoyed reading about her "awakeners;" I'm even inspired to give Charlotte Perkins Gilman a second chance after a distasteful literature class experience. The stories of these strong women making their own choices and living their own lives (regardless of whether they are "spinsters") was inspiring and by far the more successful part of the book.
Overall, this was a decent read and I'm not sorry I spent the time, but I felt it could have been more and the ending left me wanting.
My biggest issue with this book is that I'm not 100% sure what point Bolick is trying to make. It felt like a book that started out as a memoir with a mission and fell short of actually accomplishing what it could have. She shares her stories and struggles of remaining a "spinster," and yet as I was reading, I couldn't help but feel that she was more in love with the idea of being alone and unmarried than the practical application. She doesn't seem to actually enjoy being alone, or want to remain single...she just seems nervous about a piece of paper tying her to someone else. To me, that screams "commitment issues," not "spinster."
That said, Bolick is a wonderful writer, and I enjoyed reading about her "awakeners;" I'm even inspired to give Charlotte Perkins Gilman a second chance after a distasteful literature class experience. The stories of these strong women making their own choices and living their own lives (regardless of whether they are "spinsters") was inspiring and by far the more successful part of the book.
Overall, this was a decent read and I'm not sorry I spent the time, but I felt it could have been more and the ending left me wanting.
April 15, 2015
I received a copy of this from the publisher.
"Whom to marry, and when will it happen - these two questions define every woman's existence."
And with that bold statement, Bolick is off examining the life of women who choose non-marriage. She uses the lens of five significant female figures in her own education - Edna St. Vincent Millay, Maeve Brennan, Neith Boyce, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Bolick examines cultural assumptions, expectations of women, historical precedence for living alone, and the concept of alone vs. lonely.
"To set sail on the black unknown of sleep in a room that's been 'mine' nearly my entire life is one of the greatest luxuries I know. As Edna Millay once put it about an island she loved: 'There, thought unbraids itself, and the mind becomes single.'"
Bolick looks at the negative societal views of "spinsters" and tries to connect them to more recent generations:
"To further thwart self-knowledge, there's a theory that we as humans lack the imagination to 'remember' any further back than the generation or two that directly precedes us, limiting our historical memory to the eras of our parents and grandparents. This may be why the so-called 'golden years' of the 1950s and early 1960s loom so large in our contemporary consciousness, bullying many of us into believing that the institution of marriage was always thus, and will be evermore. We simply can't see through the dense hedge of norms and expectations to the decades that came before."
The concept of a woman's relationship with her own mother in how she develops a sense of self:
"When you're a daughter, your mother's face is your first mirror... odds are you'll unconsciously adopt her attitude of self-regard."
"How even I, 'a dutiful daughter,' .. was living a life so different from my mother's.... I was beginning to think that this habit of mind - constantly tracing myself back to my mother, to where she'd begun and left off - wasn't idiosyncratic, but something that many if not most women did, a feature of the female experience."
"Edna's generation came of age in a world poles apart from the one previous. As her own mother speculated in her diary in 1922, the year Edna turned thirty, 'I wonder if the real difference between us is that the added generation has given her a courage I never had, to be honest, even with myself."
The difference in perspective between married and single friends:
"Single women of my acquaintance were exceptionally alert to the people around them, generous in their attention, ready to engage in conversation or share a joke.... In the best instances, the result [of living alone] was an intricate lacework of friendships varying in intensity and closeness that could be, it seemed, just as sustaining as a nuclear family and possibly more appealing."
This book is well researched using texts that were unknown to me! I added a lot to my reading list (meaning this is the best kind of book.)
Like the following:
"[Men] are afraid that they will cease to be sultans in little monogamic harems. But the world doesn't want sultans. It wants men who can call their souls their own. And that is what feminism is going to do for men - give them back their souls, so that they can risk them fearlessly in the adventure of life." - Floyd Dell, "Feminism for Men," July 1914
by Maeve Brennan
by Maeve Brennan
"Whom to marry, and when will it happen - these two questions define every woman's existence."
And with that bold statement, Bolick is off examining the life of women who choose non-marriage. She uses the lens of five significant female figures in her own education - Edna St. Vincent Millay, Maeve Brennan, Neith Boyce, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Bolick examines cultural assumptions, expectations of women, historical precedence for living alone, and the concept of alone vs. lonely.
"To set sail on the black unknown of sleep in a room that's been 'mine' nearly my entire life is one of the greatest luxuries I know. As Edna Millay once put it about an island she loved: 'There, thought unbraids itself, and the mind becomes single.'"
Bolick looks at the negative societal views of "spinsters" and tries to connect them to more recent generations:
"To further thwart self-knowledge, there's a theory that we as humans lack the imagination to 'remember' any further back than the generation or two that directly precedes us, limiting our historical memory to the eras of our parents and grandparents. This may be why the so-called 'golden years' of the 1950s and early 1960s loom so large in our contemporary consciousness, bullying many of us into believing that the institution of marriage was always thus, and will be evermore. We simply can't see through the dense hedge of norms and expectations to the decades that came before."
The concept of a woman's relationship with her own mother in how she develops a sense of self:
"When you're a daughter, your mother's face is your first mirror... odds are you'll unconsciously adopt her attitude of self-regard."
"How even I, 'a dutiful daughter,' .. was living a life so different from my mother's.... I was beginning to think that this habit of mind - constantly tracing myself back to my mother, to where she'd begun and left off - wasn't idiosyncratic, but something that many if not most women did, a feature of the female experience."
"Edna's generation came of age in a world poles apart from the one previous. As her own mother speculated in her diary in 1922, the year Edna turned thirty, 'I wonder if the real difference between us is that the added generation has given her a courage I never had, to be honest, even with myself."
The difference in perspective between married and single friends:
"Single women of my acquaintance were exceptionally alert to the people around them, generous in their attention, ready to engage in conversation or share a joke.... In the best instances, the result [of living alone] was an intricate lacework of friendships varying in intensity and closeness that could be, it seemed, just as sustaining as a nuclear family and possibly more appealing."
This book is well researched using texts that were unknown to me! I added a lot to my reading list (meaning this is the best kind of book.)
Like the following:
"[Men] are afraid that they will cease to be sultans in little monogamic harems. But the world doesn't want sultans. It wants men who can call their souls their own. And that is what feminism is going to do for men - give them back their souls, so that they can risk them fearlessly in the adventure of life." - Floyd Dell, "Feminism for Men," July 1914
by Maeve Brennan
by Maeve Brennan
December 6, 2017
Onvan : Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own - Nevisande : Kate Bolick - ISBN : 385347138 - ISBN13 : 9780385347136 - Dar 308 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2015
September 15, 2019
Me quedo con el concepto "despertadoras", que me ha parecido precioso. Por lo demás, no he podido terminarlo. He perdido totalmente el interés después de las divagaciones sobre sus lios amorosos y sus cambios de piso constantes. Dentro de la biografÃa de la propia autora, encontramos biografÃas de otras mujeres (sus despertadoras) que aunque a priori resulte muy interesante, Kate Bolick consigue hacer de una vida apasionante, algo repetitivo hasta la saciedad.
January 15, 2015
SPINSTER is a beautifully written memoir that is part-history, part-confessional and part cultural essay. Bolick's writing occasionally stunned me with its elegance, and her tribute to her mother is incredibly powerful. Her choices are not mine, but her argument is that she should be free to make them - which I could not agree more with. Highly recommended.
April 1, 2016
I read most, if not all, of the Anne of Green Gables books as a kid (of course). I was very moved by Anne’s journey and transition to adulthood; even then, I was pretty sure I wanted to be a teacher, and so I was fascinated by her career path. While the details of the story have blurred with time, one memory continues to stick with me. In none book, Anne and a friend are discussing marriage, and they reach the determination that of the three marital states for a woman (maid/spinster, married, widow) they admitted, “widow� was surely the best—but to get there you had to pass through the “marriage� state first! I’m not sure why this sentiment, of all things, has stuck with me, but perhaps it’s because it is a fundamentally different proposition from anything I’ve had to consider by virtue of being a man in our society. This is, inevitably, the lens through which I viewed Spinster. As Kate Bolick points out from the top, expectations around marriage differ greatly for men and women. I found her analysis, drawn from her own life and the lives of several “historical spinsters� she has studied, interesting. Perhaps more interesting, however, is how this book belies its title. Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own is not about being a spinster, although it is about making a life of one’s own.
Like most people, I went into this book expecting a lengthy discussion of what it is like to be a single woman, particularly one who is over thirty. I detect rancour in some of the reviews I’ve read that protest the way Bolick seems to overlook this crucial part of spinsterhood. As Bolick herself acknowledges in the last chapter, several of the five “awakeners� she examines in the book were not, strictly speaking, spinsters. And while Bolick claims that title herself, for now, much of the time spent discussing her personal life focuses on all the men she has dated, emphasizing not so much that she has spent most of her life single but that she has spent most of her life in and out of various relationships—just none that she wanted to turn into a marriage. Like those other reviewers, I was a little frustrated by this apparent disconnect between the book’s potential and what it actually delivers. But I managed to find something worthwhile in the last few chapters that redeemed most of it.
See, this is not so much a book about being single in modern society as it is about being a woman, full stop. This is a feminist book, a plea for us to continue abolishing gender norms and double standards:
This resonates with me, because it so succinctly captures the double standard with regards to marriage. I’ve never been a relationship, and to be honest, am increasingly feeling comfortable with that state of being. And because I’m a man, I have the privilege of ignoring the question of marriage and assuming I can be independent, can provide for myself, etc., a priori. This is not the same for women, and even though women might have more choice and flexibility these days, the way they view marriage—and the way we view them, and judge them, when it comes to marriage—is very different. And I think Bolick is very right to pin this on the fundamental problem that patriarchy poses, which is namely the way it does not recognize women as people, with agency and all that entails. Just look at the ongoing battle against women’s health and reproductive rights in the United States.
In this context, then, the rest of Spinster makes more sense. Sure, some of the women that Bolick examines did end up marrying. The point is that they caught her attention for how they managed to live, single or married, as their own selves. They were individuals first, wives and women second, and that intrigued her. I like how Bolick peels back the layers of assumptions and stereotypes about the 1890s through the 1930s to show us the diversity of lifestyles. Movies and literature only show us so much; we inevitably start thinking of a certain period through the shorthand of its portrayal in fiction. Bolick’s recounts of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s strange, solitary life with her husband, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s world travels, remind us that there were always exceptions and wonderful countercultures within the more dominant culture of the time.
It’s just such a shame that it takes until literally the closing pages for Spinster to provide those missing pieces to make everything else fall into place. Bolick could have been more upfront, but she chooses instead to provide an anecdotal preface followed by a first chapter that sets the mould for the rest of the book: series of jarring vignettes that flit between her personal life and the lives of the women she has studied. While I disagree with those who feel let down by the book’s premise, I wholeheartedly agree that its organization and editing are greatly lacking. There is a great deal of interest in Spinster, but its writing does not make it an easy book to love. I pushed myself through it, through Bolick’s attempts at self-deprecation and her vacillation between being brutally self-aware and seemingly oblivious.
Also note that while Spinster is indisputably feminist in its arguments, it is a very limited, white feminism rather than intersectional. Bolick’s perspective and discourse almost myopically focuses on middle-to-upper class, white America. I don’t mind that Bolick ignores marriage in other countries and cultures, for that would be an absurdly broad scope. More troubling, though, is the omission of any thought to poor women, past or present, Black/African American women, Indigenous women, Asian women, Hispanic women, women of other various ethnicities who were born in America or immigrated. Now, it’s not surprising that Bolick writes with the perspective she does, or that the women who were her “awakeners� are similar to her in background and vocation. I don’t expect Bolick to somehow be able to authentically examine the experiences of women from different backgrounds. However, it would be nice if she at least acknowledged that, even united by a common gender, the struggles that she has faced as a woman are mediated by her race and circumstance and are different from those that other American women face, even today. This lack of self-awareness is one of the reasons white feminism is so problematic; it does not diminish the veracity of Bolick’s arguments but does undermine some of her attempts at solidarity.
I borrowed this from a coworker and friend who absolutely raved about it. Of course, when you borrow a book and don’t like it, that can be very awkward. Halfway through Spinster I was trying to figure out how I would explain/soften the blow of my disappointment with the book—fortunately, those last couple of chapters managed to change my mind. I liked Spinster, and I found a lot of Bolick’s observations eye-opening and accurate. It’s just the style and structure of the book that made liking this more of a struggle than I’m used to with my non-fiction.
Like most people, I went into this book expecting a lengthy discussion of what it is like to be a single woman, particularly one who is over thirty. I detect rancour in some of the reviews I’ve read that protest the way Bolick seems to overlook this crucial part of spinsterhood. As Bolick herself acknowledges in the last chapter, several of the five “awakeners� she examines in the book were not, strictly speaking, spinsters. And while Bolick claims that title herself, for now, much of the time spent discussing her personal life focuses on all the men she has dated, emphasizing not so much that she has spent most of her life single but that she has spent most of her life in and out of various relationships—just none that she wanted to turn into a marriage. Like those other reviewers, I was a little frustrated by this apparent disconnect between the book’s potential and what it actually delivers. But I managed to find something worthwhile in the last few chapters that redeemed most of it.
See, this is not so much a book about being single in modern society as it is about being a woman, full stop. This is a feminist book, a plea for us to continue abolishing gender norms and double standards:
The question now is something else entirely: Are women people yet? By which I mean: Are we finally ready for a young woman to set out on the long road of her life as a human being who inhabits but isn’t limited by her gender?� Until the answer is an undeniable yes, a girl actually can’t grow up like a boy, free to consider the long scope of her life as her own distinct self.
This resonates with me, because it so succinctly captures the double standard with regards to marriage. I’ve never been a relationship, and to be honest, am increasingly feeling comfortable with that state of being. And because I’m a man, I have the privilege of ignoring the question of marriage and assuming I can be independent, can provide for myself, etc., a priori. This is not the same for women, and even though women might have more choice and flexibility these days, the way they view marriage—and the way we view them, and judge them, when it comes to marriage—is very different. And I think Bolick is very right to pin this on the fundamental problem that patriarchy poses, which is namely the way it does not recognize women as people, with agency and all that entails. Just look at the ongoing battle against women’s health and reproductive rights in the United States.
In this context, then, the rest of Spinster makes more sense. Sure, some of the women that Bolick examines did end up marrying. The point is that they caught her attention for how they managed to live, single or married, as their own selves. They were individuals first, wives and women second, and that intrigued her. I like how Bolick peels back the layers of assumptions and stereotypes about the 1890s through the 1930s to show us the diversity of lifestyles. Movies and literature only show us so much; we inevitably start thinking of a certain period through the shorthand of its portrayal in fiction. Bolick’s recounts of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s strange, solitary life with her husband, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s world travels, remind us that there were always exceptions and wonderful countercultures within the more dominant culture of the time.
It’s just such a shame that it takes until literally the closing pages for Spinster to provide those missing pieces to make everything else fall into place. Bolick could have been more upfront, but she chooses instead to provide an anecdotal preface followed by a first chapter that sets the mould for the rest of the book: series of jarring vignettes that flit between her personal life and the lives of the women she has studied. While I disagree with those who feel let down by the book’s premise, I wholeheartedly agree that its organization and editing are greatly lacking. There is a great deal of interest in Spinster, but its writing does not make it an easy book to love. I pushed myself through it, through Bolick’s attempts at self-deprecation and her vacillation between being brutally self-aware and seemingly oblivious.
Also note that while Spinster is indisputably feminist in its arguments, it is a very limited, white feminism rather than intersectional. Bolick’s perspective and discourse almost myopically focuses on middle-to-upper class, white America. I don’t mind that Bolick ignores marriage in other countries and cultures, for that would be an absurdly broad scope. More troubling, though, is the omission of any thought to poor women, past or present, Black/African American women, Indigenous women, Asian women, Hispanic women, women of other various ethnicities who were born in America or immigrated. Now, it’s not surprising that Bolick writes with the perspective she does, or that the women who were her “awakeners� are similar to her in background and vocation. I don’t expect Bolick to somehow be able to authentically examine the experiences of women from different backgrounds. However, it would be nice if she at least acknowledged that, even united by a common gender, the struggles that she has faced as a woman are mediated by her race and circumstance and are different from those that other American women face, even today. This lack of self-awareness is one of the reasons white feminism is so problematic; it does not diminish the veracity of Bolick’s arguments but does undermine some of her attempts at solidarity.
I borrowed this from a coworker and friend who absolutely raved about it. Of course, when you borrow a book and don’t like it, that can be very awkward. Halfway through Spinster I was trying to figure out how I would explain/soften the blow of my disappointment with the book—fortunately, those last couple of chapters managed to change my mind. I liked Spinster, and I found a lot of Bolick’s observations eye-opening and accurate. It’s just the style and structure of the book that made liking this more of a struggle than I’m used to with my non-fiction.
March 30, 2023
"la elección entre estar casada y estar soltera ni siquiera tiene cabida aquÃ, en el siglo XXI. Ahora la pregunta es ¿ya estamos preparadas para que una mujer joven emprenda el largo camino de su vida como ser humano que tiene un sexo pero no está limitado por él?".
Durante mucho tiempo ser Soltera se ha considerado una especie de anomalÃa, una aberración con respecto al orden social. Estudiar, irte de casa, casarte y tener hijos era la fórmula de la felicidad.
Bolick nos trae un estudio de la evolución del término Spinster (originalmente hilandera), usado para designar negativamente a las mujeres solteras, comparando la vida de cinco mujeres a las que ella denomina "despertadoras" con la construcción de la suya propia.
Estas mujeres son: Maeve Brennan, Edna Millay, Neight Boyce, Edith Wharton y Charlotte Perkins de las que Bolick hace un estudio de investigación exhaustivo. Hasta aquà todo bien, la idea es perfecta.
El problema, en mi humilde opinion, es que no lo consigue con éxito. Si bien se nota que el trabajo de documentación es magnifico, entre biografÃa y biografÃa de sus "despertadoras", me encuentro con una Bolick completamente superficial que se limita a contarnos sus escarceos amorosos y sus cambios de piso. DirÃa que por momentos se me hizo bastante aburrido, incluso querer verse reflejada en su andadura como escritora con Wharton o Brennan me parece bastante atrevido por su parte.
Me llevo un pequeño chasco. Me ha faltado mucho para poder disfrutar plenamente de la lectura.
June 11, 2016
3.5*
From the outside this looks a bit like a cross between chicklit and self-help, but it isn't. And if it weren't for some goodreads reviews that crossed my path I would never have read this.
In this book Kate Bolick writes about her own life in and out of relationships as well as the lives of, what she calls, her five 'Awakeners'. These women all lived a considerable part of their lives being single in a society where marriage was the norm. Kate Bollick examines to what extent today's world really accepts single women. Even though you are professionally successful, are financially independent, and have a full and happy social life, family and friends will still ask when (not if) you'll get a boyfriend.
Being a 34 year old single woman myself I definitely recognised some of her stories. The idea that some people get just a little bit uneasy by the fact that I apparently do not desperately need someone else to share my life with.
Yes, I would love to find someone who would be worth adapting my life to, but till then I'm living a full life by myself
From the outside this looks a bit like a cross between chicklit and self-help, but it isn't. And if it weren't for some goodreads reviews that crossed my path I would never have read this.
In this book Kate Bolick writes about her own life in and out of relationships as well as the lives of, what she calls, her five 'Awakeners'. These women all lived a considerable part of their lives being single in a society where marriage was the norm. Kate Bollick examines to what extent today's world really accepts single women. Even though you are professionally successful, are financially independent, and have a full and happy social life, family and friends will still ask when (not if) you'll get a boyfriend.
Being a 34 year old single woman myself I definitely recognised some of her stories. The idea that some people get just a little bit uneasy by the fact that I apparently do not desperately need someone else to share my life with.
Yes, I would love to find someone who would be worth adapting my life to, but till then I'm living a full life by myself
December 20, 2015
I finished this book a couple of days ago and, overall, I found it an enjoyable reading experience. I liked Bolick's writing, and I really enjoyed learning about the women she discusses. I also was intrigued by her life story.
On a more critical note, I found that this book was a bit confused. The way it was structured seemed good at first, but by the end I couldn't figure out if this was a memoir, or a collection of biographies of women that influenced Bolick in some way. In a way it was a strange hybrid between the two, which I found was a bit strange. So, while I enjoyed reading this book, I don't know if I would consider it good, objectively.
Nevertheless, I'm giving this book 4 stars because, despite being self-indulgent and slightly disorganized, I really enjoyed it and would still recommend it to others.
On a more critical note, I found that this book was a bit confused. The way it was structured seemed good at first, but by the end I couldn't figure out if this was a memoir, or a collection of biographies of women that influenced Bolick in some way. In a way it was a strange hybrid between the two, which I found was a bit strange. So, while I enjoyed reading this book, I don't know if I would consider it good, objectively.
Nevertheless, I'm giving this book 4 stars because, despite being self-indulgent and slightly disorganized, I really enjoyed it and would still recommend it to others.
August 5, 2015
This was just okay to me. It's half-biography, half-memoir, all looking outside of herself for answers to her questions. Which is fine, as you tend to do that when you're in your early twenties. I ended up skimming the last 1/3 of the book. I no longer cared. It was very repetitive. She did not ever seem to learn very much, and when she did it was very slow going. True to life, perhaps, but makes for a story you want to hurry up and have a point. While Bolick makes good points here and there, it wasn't enough to keep me engaged in that regard either. The writing is quite dry and Bolick is just not interesting enough to hold my attention. I feel that this is a book that needed to be written, but perhaps by someone else.
July 20, 2016
I was expecting to be intrigued, educated, and challenged but I honestly really loved this book! Bolick's writing is compelling, interesting, and I was so engrossed I had a hard time putting the book down.
You can read my full review
You can read my full review
August 12, 2015
Spinster is a very brave book. If I dumped my heart and soul out on published page like Kate Bolick, I think I'd have to hide in a cave for the next thirty years to feel like I regained some sense of self or privacy. She takes no prisoners. Included in Spinster are all of her insecurities about marriage, the role of women, wage inequalities, societal pressures, personal heroes, style of dress, relationships, anecdotal dating stories, and it goes on and on. I learned quite a lot from this book and it was actually kind of depressing. Women's rights and roles haven't gone very far yet, have they.
I'm not an expert on marriage or parenting, having sort of stumbled my way into both, but it seems to me that sometimes in life, you just have to trust that everything is going to work out, some how. You can't plan every twist, turn, and roll of the dice and if you tried to, you might end up producing a book like Spinster in which Bolick takes "rumination" to a whole new level. Life was meant to be lived and I felt like, at times, Bolick had her life on hold as she tried to figure out what she wanted to do rather than simply doing it. Yes, this could be a manifesto for the single woman, but I wanted more roaring about feminine power rather than the continual angst about the status quo that seemed to seep from the pages.
If you liked this book, I'd recommend The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane Von Furstenberg or Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Both are memoirs about strong women who chose differing paths from the norm on their way to the unique lives that they envisioned for themselves.
I'm not an expert on marriage or parenting, having sort of stumbled my way into both, but it seems to me that sometimes in life, you just have to trust that everything is going to work out, some how. You can't plan every twist, turn, and roll of the dice and if you tried to, you might end up producing a book like Spinster in which Bolick takes "rumination" to a whole new level. Life was meant to be lived and I felt like, at times, Bolick had her life on hold as she tried to figure out what she wanted to do rather than simply doing it. Yes, this could be a manifesto for the single woman, but I wanted more roaring about feminine power rather than the continual angst about the status quo that seemed to seep from the pages.
If you liked this book, I'd recommend The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane Von Furstenberg or Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Both are memoirs about strong women who chose differing paths from the norm on their way to the unique lives that they envisioned for themselves.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,495 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.