A Short History of Women Audiobook

" Walbert's history is thin but her characters are interesting and the narrative of generations of women in one family devoted to suffrage and women's rights is rich. "

" A novel featuring generations of women beginning with a suffragist starving herself to death in England. The writing is good but the structure jumpy and the women's names so similar that I had to repeatedly refer to the genealogical table at the beginning of the book to keep the characters and times straight. "

" Initially, this book reminded me of every book I only read because it was assigned for school. Like medicine - good for you, but unpleasant. By the end, though, I liked it more and found a couple of characters sympathetic. It is a short book, but the history of women covers 5 generations, beginning with the original Dorothy, an educated - but not degreed - widowed, mother of a 13-year old daughter, Evelyn, and 10-year old son, James, who kills herself by hunger strike over the status (or lack thereof) of women. Or, perhaps she stops eating because she is depressed: unhappy with her own life, her son's clubfoot, life with her self-absorbed mother. Each of the subsequent generations of children are inescapably affected by Dorothy's decision to die, and equally unhappy with their lives. Evelyn and James, abandoned by their grandmother are separated: Evelyn sent north to a small boarding school during the war, and James sent to live with a family in California. Evelyn, one of the few fulfilled characters in the novel ultimately becomes a chemistry professor, living in Morningside Heights with a man who has lost his own wife and child. Since Evelyn never marries or has children, the generations continue through James's daughter, Dorothy, married to a survivor of a Pacific theater WWII POW camp, Charles. Dorothy and Charles have two daughters, Caroline and Liz, and have lost one son, James, to cancer. Caroline - a Yale educated lawyer - has no children, but Liz - an artist - has several including Suzanne, and a younger set of twins. The book is narrated in third person, but through the viewpoints of the characters, and in changing writing styles, so that the chapters about the more recent events even take the form of blog entries and a social networking page. I almost didn't get there though, because the initial chapters are so grammatically garbled and lacking in guiding punctuation (didn't the English use commas before WWI?), with no plot or compelling characterization, that they seem not worth the trouble of reading. This is a discussion-worthy book for those who stick with it and get to the end. "

" One of the worst books I've ever read. What spineless men and what depressed women. "

" Despite glowing reviews, I found this difficult to read. The narrative pauses a fair amount for references that are intellectually over my head. I got the general drift: women are perennially unfulfilled. The end. "

" Right up my alley, but these stories of different generations of women never came together for me. But, even the author struck me as detached. "

" Enjoyed this. Evocative stuff. It triggered an incredibly memorable dream about an important woman in my life, so it's important to me. "

" Hoping my bookclub gals will shed some light on this one for me, I was disappointed. "

" The fact that every other woman down the family tree had the same name made it a bit hard to keep everyone straight. Additionally, the book jumps around in time from woman to woman. Still, a lot of interesting character development. "

" ok,but not great "

" Still gathering my thoughts on this one... "

" I just could not get motivated to finish this. It may be great but it wasn't catching me so I quit. "

" It took me a while to get into this, though I started to like it more as I got nearer the end. I wasn't in love with the structure and the characters often jumbled in my mind. "

" I saw great reviews for this so figured it must get better if I kept reading. It didn't. Thinking I may have missed the point. Brief glimpses at women from 5 generations of the same family. None of the characters fully developed. Two stars only because the writing was lovely. "

" I have tried and tried to read this book and I just can't get into it. Same/similar names for different women of different generations has me stuck. "

" This had potential but I was really disappointed. The summary on the back of the book is better than what is inside. "

" I got most of the way through this book and abandoned it. Boring. Yawn. "

" Feelings. This is a book about feelings. The feelings are beautifully expressed by the characters' lives and the tone, structure and author's quality of writing. This is both an endorsement and a warning. "

" This book sucked. It did not keep my interest. "

" My favorite character was Evelyn Charlotte Townsend, though I also enjoyed the brief sections from Caroline Townsend Barrett Deel and her daughter Dora. This was a pretty good read, though at times it got so caught up in emotional and sociological narrative that the effect was dampened. "

" This book was so bad my entire book club couldn't finish it and we ended up cancelling our meeting -- that has never happened before! "

" The fragmented lives of five generations of women through whom the echoes of the first's willful starvation reverberate from 1898-2007. Each, buffeted by her era, struggles for meaning, self-expression, and love. A slim but challenging non-linear novel. "

" Distracted by the supposedly-different voices of female characters who all have the same problem with using too many subordinate clauses. Find myself searching for the end of the sentence rather than reading for content. "

" I got 60 pages into this book and had to stop. I don't mind character driven books, but there was only one conversation between characters in the first 60 pages. Ugghh... "

" A family tree of women's stories, most of whom had depressing lives. "

" Started off strong and I wanted to like this more than I did. Nice spare language, great concept (each chapter is a different woman in this family's family tree). "

" Other than needing a Venn diagram and Visio flow-chart to keep up with all of the characters and the almost maniacal flipping back and forth between centuries, this book was outstanding. Good book for a book club setting. "