From the Bookshelf of Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge…

The Awakening

Kate Chopin

Start date: January 21, 2015

Finish date: January 26, 2015

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Mar 10, 2018 Sharlene rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, library, ebook, women-writers, 2018

I once tried to read this book, quite some years ago, when I wasn't ready for it and I didn't finish it. But today, many years older (and hopefully wiser), I finally understood it. And it was everything. While I didn't actually like anyone in the book, I have to admire Chopin's determination to write something like this, to write Edna's boldness in wanting to be more than just a wife and a mother.
#booked2018 #feministclassic ...more

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Nov 05, 2018 Leslie Jerkins rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018, mmd-2018-challenge

I’ve wanted to reread this book for years, having only read it once in high school, at maybe fifteen years old. I’m glad to have waded through other literature studies and references with knowledge of the Awakening already in mind... but wow, how very much I had forgotten.

First, the prose. So spare yet so detailed—refreshing. (The tone rather reminded me of the Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante.) The way the ending unfolds... Ah!

Second, I’m glad to have “met” Mrs. Pontellier first as a teenag ...more

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Apr 24, 2020 Amy Crehore rated it it was amazing

Wow. Absolutely loved. So modern for the time! Quick and easy to read.

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Dec 24, 2020 shannon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-must-reads

4.5 stars

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Jan 15, 2008 Debbie rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

Edna Pontellier is a passionate and artistic woman who feels stifled in her role as wife and mother. When her husband is out of town for the summer, 28-year-old Edna has an affair with a younger man. As her sensuality and sense of self awaken, Edna sends her children to the country and moves to a small house all her own.

Unfortunately, there is no acceptable place for this self-aware woman in the repressive society of the time and Edna is not allowed to live happily ever after.

Depressing, but int ...more

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Jan 21, 2010 Julia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: re-reading

First, the writing is beautiful. The tale itself is difficult for modern women to read because it's hard to even imagine how limiting Edna's life choices were. In many ways it reminds me of Middlemarch -- what happens when a woman who wants more is confined to a life of less. It is pretty amazing that a book I rated a 1 as a teen is now a 5, but that's what age does for one. ...more

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