The Female Persuasion

A remarkable study of how feminism has evolved over the last thirty years and what it means to be empowered in the 21st century.

Hailey Maitland, Vogue

Ambitious...startlingly perceptive...full of Wolitzer's trademark wit and insight...strong enough to remind us that we can change the world, one woman at a time

Washington Post

Wolitzer is an irresistibly charming novelist, a keen, affectionate examiner of society

Alexandra Schwartz, New Yorker

'The novel’s timeliness cannot be understated...tight but inclusive, and deserves to be placed on shelves alongside such ornate modern novels beginning in college as A Little Life, The Secret History and The Marriage Plot... But when all is said and done, Wolitzer is an infinitely capable creator of human identities that are as real as the type on this page, and her love of her characters shines more brightly than any agenda

Lena Dunham, New York Times Book Review

Begins with a campus assault and evolves into an exploration of intergenerational feminism, steeped in the cultural conversation of today… A deft portrayal of the complexity of human identity.

Matthew Janney, Culture Trip

There’s much more to admire here as the novel ponders friendship, love and parent-child relationships. But in the end, Wolitzer’s real gift to her readers is a story that feels both timeless and very much of the zeitgeist.

Daily Mail

Meg Wolitzer bores into the barbed tangles of contemporary feminism with disarming charm… Captures the ambition and angst of growing up with warmth and wisdom in a book that’s at once searingly intelligent and gloriously light.

Lucy Brooks, CultureWhisper

Clever and entertaining...incisive without being acerbic, Wolitzer’s novel is unpredictably plotted, persuasively observed and often very funny

Anthony Cummins, Prospect

From the very first page of any novel by Meg Wolitzer, you feel in safe hands. She is skilful and confident…she is exceptionally gifted in the neglected craft of plotting...like a modern-day Edith Wharton, she has an instinctive understanding that tragedy and comedy are different sides of the same coin... How could you fail to love such a writer?

Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

Wolitzer is an astute observe of cultural nuance, particularly around gender and inequality

Lucy Atkins, Sunday Times

An ambitious overview of the women's movement...her writing is peppered with wit and her send-up of various sacred cows is often funny

Kate Saunders, The Times

The Female Persuasion is…a gripping novel that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page

Erica Wagner, Harper's Bazaar

Meg Wolitzer's tale of feminism's generational differences is much richer than mere polemical tract

Lucy Scholes, Independent

The textures of the world Wolitzer describes feel satisfyingly right… Wolitzer holds attention with her warm grasp of character and careful, probing working out of personality under the forces of time and trauma’

Sarah Ditum, New Statesman

Deft and funny…trenchant, clever, displaying a pitch-perfect recollection of the idealism of early adulthood and what life subsequently does to undo it

Emma Brockes, Guardian

No novelist I can think of has majored on the group portrait with quite such verve, wit and sympathy as Meg Wolitzer

Ferdinand Mount, Spectator

An effortless read

Stylist

Bustling, large-hearted... The Female Persuasion discusses timely issues of feminism...but does so through fully realised characters

Refinery29

sympathetically satirises this complicated landscape of contemporary feminism...warm and witty, and necessary...With affection and generosity, Wolitzer exposes the limits of power through a handful of well-meant lives and she leaves us uneasy. The sense that we may have smashed a glass ceiling, but now are standing in the shards, discreetly bleeding

Eva Wiseman, Observer

it deftly interweaves the political with the personal... clear and smart

Emma Jacobs, Financial Times

[Woltizer is] interested in the complexities of being female… This is an unashamedly traditional novel of ideas, not afraid to boldly inhabit the moment we live in

Claire Allfree, Daily Telegraph

The Female Persuasion is wonderfully dense and wise, a page-turner that succeeds both at character and ideas. It felt true to life

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Guardian

A significant contribution to Wolitzer’s body of work

Alex Clark, Guardian

Wolitzer’s prose is direct and engaging… her characters feel alive and individual

Josie Mitchell, Literary Review

The Female Persuasion has gone straight into my library of favourite novels ever, on a shelf next to David Copperfield, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Lonesome Dove, and Love in a Time of Cholera

Nick Hornby

My favourite book of the year… Wolitzer deserves more recognition: she is as talented a storyteller as Donna Tartt, as funny as Jonathan Franzen, but she has her own distinct brilliance

Rebecca Rose, Financial Times, **Books of the Year**

Wolitzer is an empathy delivery system

Financial Times, **FT Readers' Books of the Year**

The end will leave you simmering with impotent rage, which sounds about right for 2018

Lucy Hunter Johnston, Evening Standard, **Books of the Year**