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Dec 17, 2009

Jen rated it:

This book is very imaginative, although a bit dated at times. Marge Piercy is a unique writer, in that she is very good at writing complex characters with strengths and flaws. Similiarly, her Utopian Society of the future has had to sacrifice some things that are extremely important to Connie (or nearly any 20th/ 21st C person) in order to create a sustaining and egalitarian society.

This novel also has some nice poetic moments. In one of the more illustrative passages, Connie's More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 25, 2010

Lisa rated it:

The most important thing to know about this book is that it was first published in 1976. This is such a late 1960s-early-mid 1970s story! It’s funny because part of it takes place in the mid 70s and part takes place in the 22nd century. The 22nd century appears as though imagined in the 1970s. So, the future seems dated somehow. I suspect I would have thought it was brilliant if I’d read it over three decades ago. Now, I cringed quite a bit and thought it was unintentionally humorous at times.
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5 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2008

Stephanie rated it:

Published in 1976, this book was remarkably prescient. The way that Piercy has structured her utopian community of the future is not too far off the direction that alternative communities have been moving since the '60s -- and which has only accelerated in recent years, with the greater focus on sustainability and alternate energy sources. She also does a nice job of contrasting the plausible future utopia with an equally plausible dystopia, in which everything is state-controlled, bio-enginee More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Valerie rated it:

i read this book in a day because it was for college. it's really good though.

it's about this lady who sometimes travels into this utopian-egalitarian future. she lives in an insane asylum so you're not supposed to know if she's crazy or really time traveling. the end is a surprise.

i thought it was really interesting to read about what this author thought a feminist utopia would look like. i thought it was fun to agree or disagree with aspects of it and i unintentionally More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2007

sandra rated it:

It's been a while, but I remember liking this book a lot. It has some fantastic notions and weird/interesting ideas within its future utopia (futuropia? femitopia?) that are fun to agree or disagree with.

Unlike other utopia novels, Piercy gives you room to agree or not. This is admirable and is as it should be; I can't stand force-feeding-shrill-polemic books (Ayn Rand, I'm looking at you). As John Stuart Mill said, "The worst offense that can be committed by a polemic is t More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2008

Mat rated it:

70's feminist tentative-utopia. As that genre goes, i really like this one. It comes more from the gender fluid/ androgyny positive side of things than the essentialist "women are more nurturing shit", which i liked. And i liked that the main character was a mad woman and that madness was well explored, if slightly simplistically at times. I don't like it's anti-cityness or certain aspects of uniformity that it espouses, but it's pretty tolerable for the traditions it adheres to. More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 11, 2011

Ashley rated it:

Amazing if only for the introduction of 'per' as a gender neutral pronoun, Brilliant....and the social commentary is great as well..

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 25, 2008

Dennis rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jim rated it:

This is one of my favorite books and one that had a pretty profound influence on me. I guess you could call the future society she imagines a "feminist utopia" (as I've seen in reviews on this site). When I read it for a Comparative Literature class I was impressed by the way the family unit and community itself were structured and functioned. And its really stuck with me a long time and seems to have grown with me subconsciously. I've read it a couple times since and the "utopia" More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 29, 2009

Mquin rated it:

This book could be good. Could. I have to admit, I read it to page 150 and stopped. The main character is a beat-up and bruised 40 year old Chicana living in New York. She is dead broke poor, has been beaten on and mistreated by men numerous times, and disliked herself so much at one point that she beat her 4 year old daughter (whom she saw as part of herself). She was put in a mental institution numerous times; the second time for smashing in the nose of her niece's pimp after he had beat u More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2012

Max rated it:

It’s interesting how the lens of three decades of life experience can sharpen the focus of certain stories—and even parts of stories. When I first read Woman on the Edge of Time not long after it was published (1976), I was barely into my 20s and already a reliable cog in the corporate machine. At that time, I enjoyed Marge Piercy’s story of a 37-year-old Chicana woman in New York whose already-complicated life takes a twist for the bizarre when she begins to communicate with an ambassador from

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Nov 30, 2011

Emma rated it:

This is a rather strange book and while I read it and enjoyed it, I'm almost not sure what to think about it. Woman on the edge of time is about a woman who through a web of entirely eblievable circumstances ends up being sectioned in a mental hospital. What makes her different from any poor woman exploited in this way is that she's a 'receptive' woman, which means someone from the future is able to mentaly contact her, visiting her and at times bringing her into the future. It's never explored More...

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May 20, 2011

Cyndy rated it:

I was first introduced to the novels and poetry of Marge Piercy when I was in college and very focused on the writings of women, especially feminist writings. In going through a bunch of books I had been keeping at my parents' house, I discovered boxes of books I probably haven't read in over ten years, one of which was Woman on the Edge of Time.

::: Edge of Time, Edge of Reason :::

Connie Ramos, the protagonist, is a middle-aged Hispanic woman living in poverty in New York Cit More...

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Apr 16, 2011

Robyn rated it:

This book took me back to my early 20's when I first read it. I didn't realize it then, but it is a really great period piece. The future embodies all the feminist, socialist ideals of the 60's and 70's.

I still love this book because the protagonist, Connie Ramos, is raw and her life is so rough around the edges. Too often, authors produce sanitized characters (but I think their readers want this). But Marge Piercy really makes you feel how difficult every day life is for C More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 10, 2011

Angela rated it:

With honest and compelling prose, Marge Piercy delves into the mind of thirty-seven-year-old Consuelo (Connie) Ramos, a woman who exists on the fringes of life in contemporary New York City. Early in the novel Connie beats up her niece's pimp and is committed - again - to the psychiatric ward in Bellevue Hospital. The novel shifts between the horrible conditions in psychiatric wards and the year 2137, as Connie at first talks to, then time travels with Luciente, a person from that future time. L More...

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Feb 02, 2011

Andrea rated it:

fter smashing her niece's pimp in the face with a bottle, Connie Ramos is declared violently insane. Trapped in the terrible tedium of the asylum ward, Connie, as a receiver, is able to escapes via her connection with Luciente to the year 2137. She sees first hand a utopian society, in which division of gender and race is nonexistent and people live in peace and connection with the earth and its animals. Meanwhile, in her own time, the doctors have signed her up for a dangerous experiment that c More...

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Jan 26, 2011

Gina rated it:

Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy is one of those books whose story imprints in your mind, leaving a lasting impression that will change your view of your ordinary world. The book tells the story of a Mexican woman named Consuelo (Connie) Ramos who has been committed for the second time to a psychiatric ward in Bellevue Hospital, which is in 1970’s New York City. Connie suffers a mental breakdown after being severely beaten by her niece’s pimp and admitted to the miserable hospital wh More...

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Mar 29, 2010

Daniela rated it:

Summary: Living in the late sixties, thirty-seven year old Connie Ramos is an average, oppressed lower class citizen, except for her ability to make contact with the future through Luciente. In Luciente's utopic future society, people work together to raise children, all food is grown naturally, distinction between the sexes doesn't exist and technology is finally used for the good of all. Connie's joy in discovering the future world of Mattapoisett is constantly contrasted with her brutal exist More...

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Apr 21, 2009

Mary rated it:

I have gained a lot from utopian novels, and this book is partly that. It is also an intense "showing" of what it's like to be in a mental hospital, the horrific details of which we probably assume, but it's always good to be reminded. When you finish this book, you realize that it's like one of those pictures where looking from one set of eyes, it's a lampshade, but another set of eyes, it's two people. This book is like that. Either the heroine is a violent mental case who should be More...

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Dec 17, 2009

Pige rated it:

I read this one awhile ago, but in thinking about "Is there no place for me" I thought of this one. It's similar only in that it's a woman placed in a mental hospital against her will. But this woman's story is more of a fantasy story. She mentally moves back and forth between two worlds, neither seeming overly attractive at times, both having their dark moments. I won't give away too many more plot details, but the more I think about this book, the more I'd like to go back and re-r

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 28, 2010

cheryl rated it:

I'm not quite sure how I stumbled on this book. It was written in the 70s and the present-day of the novel is the same era. The protagonist is Connie, a woman who has had a rough life and has bounced in and out of the psychiatric ward for a while...a situation that started when she did harm her daughter while on drugs but that seems prolonged by the failures of that system and by the trials of her life.

Early on in the book, she discovers the ability to commune with the future throu More...

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Mar 03, 2011

Amy rated it:

What happens when you can't tell if you are crazy or sane? When you can't tell if it's you or everyone else? What would life be like if you could just be yourself and not have to worry about the basics of day to day survival? On the other hand, what would life be like if people in power offered you your freedom but at a ridiculously high price?

This was the first Marge Piercy book I read. It had been recommended to me eight or nine years ago. Why I didn't read it, I don't know but More...

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Oct 25, 2010

Cindy rated it:

I'm wavering between 4 and 5 stars. I really, really enjoyed the story and the writing, and I was totally absorbed. So, even though the book has flaws, I rounded up to 5.

Books I couldn't help think of while reading Woman on the Edge of Time:
*The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Treatment of poor minority women, and issues of consent)
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Who's crazy in the loony bin?)
*My Lobotomy (Memoir from a former patient who had a forced lobotomy w More...

12 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 18, 2009

Ab rated it:

This was a very interesting read ... I sort of connected to it as a female-led "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Throw in some questionable time-travel to a distant possible future, and it's that easy! This poor, struggling, welfare mother is abused by society, as so many of this class are, and she is stuck in a state mental institution where no one gives a shit about her or anyone there. The "patients" are basically lower than animals at a zoo! Doctors begin to use them as More...

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Jul 01, 2009

Fiona rated it:

This book took up my every waking hour while I was reading it, and indeed by the end I was having dreams about it too! Unfortunately my unconscious brain is not a good author, and the bits of plot I dreamed were rubbish!

I loved reading about the utopian society, but I didn't read it entirely without misgivings. It was fun to wonder would things be better this or that way, but also I found myself wondering what exactly the author intended at some points. I mean, I know that Connie's More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2008

Trish rated it:

It's been a long time since I've read 70's feminist dys/utopian sci-fi. So this was kinda fun. It was recommended to me by a friend who I think mainly loved the gender-neutral future part - using per instead of him/her, and person instead of she/he. As in "Person feels sad that you are angry with per." A little hard to get used to, and kind of strange because everyone was still male or female, although I understand the author's point that women were equal with men, and were no long More...

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Oct 01, 2011

Holly rated it:

Connie Ramos, a Chicana woman in her mid-30s living in NYC, is labelled insane and is committed to a mental institution where her brother consents to her use in a brain study. Connie, in the meantime, travels back and forth between her life in today's world and one future world, 2137.

In 2137, or at least one version of 2137, there are two societies. One is based on a philosopy of minimal impact and equality, and one is highly sophisticated and distructive. They are at war. Connie i More...

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Jun 10, 2007

Michelle rated it:

My favorite fem. utopia of all times. Marge Piercy is really the only writer to believe that equality between men and women can be attained...w/o killing off one of the sexes or completely segregating. Although, the female would have to give up the right to have children. It poses some very interesting questions and investigations into serious social issues. Used it for my thesis, and loved it, loved it, loved it!!

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 24, 2010

Nomi rated it:

It was great fun revisiting this 70s feminist "classic" about a mentally ill Latina named Connie who was committed to Belevue by her family. Connie, diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, can suspiciously sort of mind meld with the future by "traveling" to Piercy's feminist utopia. In this world biology has no place-three "persons" come together and decide to be coms (comoms) and wait for their child to birth out of a tank. Male persons may even choose to breastfeed. More...

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Oct 08, 2007

Ian rated it:

I'd actually like to rate this book 3.5 stars. I enjoyed my time reading it and often looked forward to picking it up but it didn't bowl me over. I definitely fell in love with the utopian society created in it, which is actually why a friend recommended it to me. I definitely think it's worth reading. It has some great commentary but I think it lacks an edge that could have made it really moving.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)