This is not a book for everyone, but its admirers are vigorously enthusiastic. For example:
Rhoda Koenig in New York Magazine, who calls it &quo... read full description
Rhoda Koenig in New York Magazine, who calls it &quo... read full description
reviews
Aug 18, 2011
Roy
rated it: 
Fay Weldon was in the zone when she penned this masterpiece, and that pen of hers cuts like a knife. The movie made from this book is the worst butchering of a story I've ever been unfortunate enough to encounter. On the other hand the BBC did an excellent adaptation as a mini-series by remaining quite faithful to the book. This novel could be quite dangerous in the hands of the wrong woman. :-)
3 comments
like
(3 people liked it)
Dec 08, 2008
Manny
rated it:
My favourite extreme-feminist novel. Being male and reading this was somewhat uncomfortable at first, but after a chapter or so I decided that for the duration of the book I was really a woman - then I could settle down and enjoy it. It's very funny and insightful.
Sep 08, 2009
Larissa
rated it: 
This novel is something of a cultural artifact, from a time when feminism had won most of its legal victories but the idea of equality hadn't become socially or culturally entrenched. Consequently, although the book depicts the complete triumph of a scorned woman over her cheating husband and his mistress, this victory is mostly won on anti-feminist terms. Ruth shows herself capable of building a successful business (albeit, one partially based on the exploitation of other working women), and he
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Jun 23, 2009
Khaya
rated it:
This is the story of Ruth, a large, clumsy, ugly woman, married to unappreciative and philandering Bobbo and living as a suburban housewife. When Bobbo leaves Ruth for his mistress, Mary Fisher, a delicate-looking and wealthy writer of romance novels, Ruth begins her transformation from docile, long-suffering hausfrau to diabolical and courageous "she-devil," stopping at nothing to get her elaborately plotted revenge on her husband's mistress and to eventually take over her life.
More...
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Oct 20, 2011
Kathleen
rated it:
What was I doing in the 1980s??! Oh yes, mothering a couple of small children. No wonder I didn't read any of the great hits of the time - I was insular and stagnated and kept to the safe-and-already-known.
This novel is darkly funny. Ruth is a very tall, very unattractive woman (by her own description), married to Bobbo (and we can accept such a ridiculous name because the novel is set in Sydney, Australia, and they do, honestly, give each other such clownish nicknames - though I' More...
This novel is darkly funny. Ruth is a very tall, very unattractive woman (by her own description), married to Bobbo (and we can accept such a ridiculous name because the novel is set in Sydney, Australia, and they do, honestly, give each other such clownish nicknames - though I' More...
Dec 17, 2009
Isabella
rated it: 
Not nearly as funny as I expected it to be. Mediocre at best. Poor Mary Fisher! I ended up feeling more for her than anyone else involved (especially Ruth Patchett).
Who'd have thought that "a tale of personal transformation" would mean just *that*?....Yes, plastic surgery - and lots of it.
Who'd have thought that "a tale of personal transformation" would mean just *that*?....Yes, plastic surgery - and lots of it.
2 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Jul 26, 2011
Lori
rated it: 
I picked up this book from my local library thinking it would be the literary equivalent of the 1989 movie with Meryl Streep and Roseanne Barr. I love the movie with inexcusable glee - - it's a guilty pleasure, the revenge is wonderfully satisfying and Meryl Streep is incredible, as always. Unfortunately I was sorely mistaken.
First, the book is quite different from the movie. Or perhaps I should say that the movie is quite different from the book, since the book came first. I fel More...
First, the book is quite different from the movie. Or perhaps I should say that the movie is quite different from the book, since the book came first. I fel More...
Mar 17, 2009
Shireen
rated it: 
I love this author's writing style! It is definitely dark humor from a woman with a billiant mind and a tortured soul. In this book, Weldon mocks the woman who undergoes numerous surgeries to get back her man, only to discover the man she thought she wanted is but a shell of his former self and she is not anyone she would like to know. A very witty writer with elegant prose delivered in lyrical style.
Beware, though, that this is not a book for everyone. It is not to be taken li More...
Beware, though, that this is not a book for everyone. It is not to be taken li More...
Jan 03, 2009
Sarah
rated it:
In the late 80’s, I loved the movie “She-Devil,” with Roseanne Barr, Ed Begler Jr. and Meryl Streep. It was ridiculous and fun, watching Ruth get “cold-blooded” revenge on her cheating husband and his new romance-writing woman. I did not know it was based on a book! A book written by a well-known feminist writer, no less. Of course, the book is better, and more serious, than the movie. The lengths that Ruth goes for revenge in the novel are quite shocking, much more so than as portrayed by
More...
Mar 29, 2011
Aubrey
rated it:
I read this in a women in literature class in college. I'm not really a feminist. I thought I was until I took that class. Freshman year of college, too. It was an interesting experience.
Anywho...
I think a lot of people in that class hated this, but I absolutely loved this book. It was insane. A woman who does crazy things to change herself, make herself more desirable? I was young when I read it, but I'd love to read it again and see how my perspective has changed. It's a c More...
Anywho...
I think a lot of people in that class hated this, but I absolutely loved this book. It was insane. A woman who does crazy things to change herself, make herself more desirable? I was young when I read it, but I'd love to read it again and see how my perspective has changed. It's a c More...
Sep 19, 2011
This is an excellent breakup book, though I would recommend giving the pain a few months to mellow before jumping into this perfect tale of plotted, thorough revenge.
Fay Weldon is one of those writers who manages to write comedy without seeming to. While there are several facets of Ruth's personality that could alienate, you cannot help but identify with and root for her. What woman hasn't felt that stab of rejection at least once in her life? And what woman hasn't toyed with the idea of an e More...
Fay Weldon is one of those writers who manages to write comedy without seeming to. While there are several facets of Ruth's personality that could alienate, you cannot help but identify with and root for her. What woman hasn't felt that stab of rejection at least once in her life? And what woman hasn't toyed with the idea of an e More...
Dec 01, 2009
Claudia
rated it:
This book is as vile as it is amazing. True heroine Ruth goes on a quest to 'take arms up against God himself', after being left by her husband for a young, beautiful woman. In her journey to remake herself, she slowly but surely destroys everything around Bobbo and while doing it, becomes successful in every aspect of her life.
Loved it, hated the movie. It butchered the story and killed the most important message of the book: women are not weak, passive creatures. We can do whatever More...
Loved it, hated the movie. It butchered the story and killed the most important message of the book: women are not weak, passive creatures. We can do whatever More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Aug 06, 2010
Abbi
rated it:
"Mrs. Black, washing up glasses, resolved never to give another party, never, and to divorce her husband and next time marry someone without hypocrisy, possibly from the army, who understood how much more satisfactory it is to kill and die for a cause, in the shadow of some great loyalty, than to try to live forever in the framework of the personal and the trivial.
Presently Dr. Black drove Miss Hunter back to the clinic, but not before accusing Mrs. Black of unforgivable rudene More...
Presently Dr. Black drove Miss Hunter back to the clinic, but not before accusing Mrs. Black of unforgivable rudene More...
Jan 08, 2010
Heather
rated it:
All I could think while reading this book was, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Although on the surface the story is a detailed telling of the calculating revenge of the protagonist, this story is about a lot more. This is a book full of contradictions.
On the surface, it is the story of a woman who felt sorry for herself and depended on others for her support and also accepted their negative image of her. She becomes a "she devil", which essentially me More...
On the surface, it is the story of a woman who felt sorry for herself and depended on others for her support and also accepted their negative image of her. She becomes a "she devil", which essentially me More...
May 16, 2008
Beth
rated it:
I read this book years ago, and it lingers in my memory. Weldon is a chronicler of women's lives and roles. Here she explores the extremes of feminine or feminist revenge. Her character Ruth starts life as an unremarkable doormat. Unattractive, lumpy, hairy, and marked by a mole she lucks into marriage with the first man to lay his hands on her, Bobbo a beancounter. He's soon revealed to be no prize. He leaves her for one of his clients, romance novelist Mary Fisher. Ruth's anger turns into a li
More...
Jun 03, 2010
John
rated it:
I saw the movie first. I know the movie so well, it hurts. It hurts, because I found the movie to be more entertaining, funny, and worth my time than the book. It found a way to take this story and flesh it out in a commercial way.
The book encompasses the film, yes, but it continues and becomes sad. ***SPOILER*** Ruth undergoes a lot of plastic surgery to take on Mary Fisher's body and, basically, enslave her husband. Is it necessary? She really isn't the heroine, and I feel so More...
The book encompasses the film, yes, but it continues and becomes sad. ***SPOILER*** Ruth undergoes a lot of plastic surgery to take on Mary Fisher's body and, basically, enslave her husband. Is it necessary? She really isn't the heroine, and I feel so More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Feb 20, 2008
Lisalit
rated it:
I first read this book when I was in seventh grade, and loved it so much that I kept a notebook full of quotes from the book (such things as "I sing a hymn to the death of love and the end of pain"). When I reread it, I found it to be a lot more inherently disturbing than I had remembered. Ruth is a large, ugly housewife whose husband, Bobbo, feels justified in having affairs with more attractive, daintier women. He feels that Ruth should be happy that he married her and gave her ch
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Jan 28, 2008
Aaron
rated it:
This was a re-read for me, actually--I read it the first time when I was 19, and I still love it just as much.
ANYONE who's ever been jilted and ill-used by a lover/spouse/partner and fantasized about getting the ultimate revenge, this book tells the (fictional, of course) story of one woman who actually goes for it.
Some of her actions are cringe-worthy...she steps over a lot of lines, and makes unthinkable sacrifices. Many of the things she does would be impossible i More...
ANYONE who's ever been jilted and ill-used by a lover/spouse/partner and fantasized about getting the ultimate revenge, this book tells the (fictional, of course) story of one woman who actually goes for it.
Some of her actions are cringe-worthy...she steps over a lot of lines, and makes unthinkable sacrifices. Many of the things she does would be impossible i More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Sep 02, 2011
Nina
rated it:
'She understand now that unhappiness must follow happiness, misfortune good fortune'. p. 141
'only by knowing what we are can we achieve Salvation' p.210
'that way contentment lay, if not justice and the turning of the man to the woman in the peace of the marital bed and her to him, was perhaps all the compensation required for the evident injustices of married life in the modern world' p.132
'only by knowing what we are can we achieve Salvation' p.210
'that way contentment lay, if not justice and the turning of the man to the woman in the peace of the marital bed and her to him, was perhaps all the compensation required for the evident injustices of married life in the modern world' p.132
Aug 25, 2008
Bianca
rated it:
I turn to this book for lessons. This is a categorical error, of course, but I can't help but form a political inquiry as I read it.
I approach this book with the question: does knowing the limits of social forms matter? Certainly it matters for how Ruth navigates them as the "she-devil" - someone who has substituted the race for the usual happinesses (beauty, love and financial security) with goals of revenge, parody, and ironic justice. But, in order to get all of t More...
Jun 17, 2011
Julie
rated it:
I read this book about 15 years ago, and just reread it. A story of revenge and a great feminist novel. The main character, Ruth, is a betrayed cast away mother and wife who wants vengeance for being mistreated. Her whole life is spent recreating herself and gaining so much power that even nature and God won't stand in her way. Dark, absurd, utterly delightful.
Aug 26, 2009
Sara
rated it:
Hilarious book for those with a somewhat dark and odd sense of humor. Very interesting journey from beginning to end. Nothing complicated or overly intellectual, but a neat little abstract take on human nature and the way our internal thoughts and insecurities can cause major external actions and reactions.
Sep 22, 2009
Kaethe
rated it:
Back when I read this, fifteen or so years ago, I would probably have given it more stars. But in retrospect, it's the sort of thing Rush Limbaugh imagines feminists would get up to. There's always a certain amount of satisfaction in pursuing (fictional) revenge, but I prefer the Fist Wives Club for that.
Oct 06, 2011
Melissa
rated it:
I love the scene in the novel after the failed dinner party and she begins her transformation into a she devil. It's a good thing I didn't read this immediately after my divorce because it would have fueled my desire to do bodily harm to the guy I married!!!!!
Sep 17, 2011
Diane *Ahnnihilate*
rated it:
Really liked the start of this; I sympathized with the protagonist, Ruth, and I wanted to see the fall of Bobbo and Mary Fisher. Oh the delicious thrill of revenge!
But in the end I did not like the person Ruth became and I was indifferent to Mary and Bobbo's suffering. Wasted potential.
But in the end I did not like the person Ruth became and I was indifferent to Mary and Bobbo's suffering. Wasted potential.
Jul 17, 2010
Filippa
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Mar 27, 2009
Lacey
rated it:
The book is very dated. I think it was probably important at the time, but I feel that themes are tired and cliched. If I knew it was this easy to get published, I would have started trying a long time ago.
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Jun 25, 2009
Mark
rated it:
Great book turned into a pretty crappy movie. After reading seek out the BBC miniseries that keeps the books tone intact and avoid the misguided american feature film starring Roseanne and Meryl Streep.
Aug 23, 2009
Ndecker1
rated it:
An amazingly devilish read. Chapters go back and forth between first and third person perspective so you get a very rich sense of what is going on in the book with its characters.
Jan 06, 2012
Maggie
rated it:
"And we wait for old age to equalise all things. We make good old woman."
"He merely felt that life and money were the same thing. His father had implied it often enough."
"He merely felt that life and money were the same thing. His father had implied it often enough."
