Rating: 
Summary: Skilled writing, small idea
Review: I was drawn to this book after reading an excerpt in a review. What brilliant writing! What clear, penetrating prose and seamless storytelling! And indeed, now that I've finished the entire book, I still think the writing style-the sheer craft of it-is mesmerizing, intelligent, funny and clean as fine crystal. What lies beneath the polished prose, however-the plot elements and story structure itself-are sadly rather ordinary and poorly developed.In fairness, I was gripped through much of the book and am envious of its accomplishments. It is not for every taste, though. My first disappointment came quickly. No sooner had I read past the original excerpt when I realized I'd been sorely misdirected. The divorce-or at least separation-we've anticipated since the first or second sentence is ... how shall I say this? ... delayed. Most of the story is a flashback. All right, that's fair enough. Yet I again had to adjust my perspective when it turned out "The Wife" is mostly about THE HUSBAND. We get very little of the wife's background, childhood etc. Ah, but isn't that the point? This wife is selfless-slavishly devoted to her husband's career and reputation. Nonetheless, deeper into the story other narrative problems were utterly puzzling. Wouldn't the virgin college girl of the 1950s be the least bit self-conscious about her adequacy-clothes, body-before her first sexual experience? Later, shouldn't more have been made of the one and only encounter between the wife of the title and her mother? That scene ends too quickly and anticlimactically for me. And toward the end, when one of the main characters seems to exacerbate another's dangerous medical condition, a mere half-sentence about feelings of guilt and responsibility is conspicuous by its absence. Perhaps this is a woman's book and I'm just a pigheaded man. But my own wife disliked the book vehemently. She said she guessed the end early on. I defend "The Wife," but I think now it is best appreciated by those involved in the business of writing. (Guilty.) Like Balzac, Wolitzer is here a writers' writer. I didn't always understand or agree with her fictional examples of "bad writing" versus "good writing." (And she comes across as very judgmental.) Yet if you have any interest in the distinction between bad writers with great ideas and gifted writers with small, inadequate ideas-and I do-then this book is for you. Ultimately, Wolitzer would fall into the "skilled practitioner, ho-hum concept" category, though who knows? That may be a guise, an intentional characteristic of the earnest, short-sighted character she's created.
Rating: 
Summary: Thought-provoking, intelligent novel
Review: I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a combination of a meaty, highly intelligent book and an incredibly fast-paced beach book. Ms. Wolitzer's observations about married life are remarkably on target. Her writing style is truly amazing, just beautiful. There is a lot to talk about in reading groups with this book. This is one of those rare books that I will read again, in order to see it from a different perspective. Wonderful!
Rating:
Summary: No surprise to me...
Review: I'm not quite sure how anyone could have been surprised by the alleged twist ending of this novel. I caught on very early-- Wolitzer drops clear hints throughout that make it pretty obvious to the careful reader. Still, as a published author myself, I definitely appreciated her musings on the gender biases against women novelists, i.e,. how male writers are treated like geniuses and females are stuck in a chick-lit ghetto, etc.
Rating: 
Summary: Stupid Women Stupid Choices
Review: If you don't see the "twist" coming at the end of Wolitzer's "The Wife", then you've never read any feminist literature before...heck, you haven't ever read a mystery, either! Add this novel to the stack of books (most recently "Mrs. Kimbal" by Jennifer Haigh) about women making incomprehensible life choices. Are we really this stupid or do we just like to read about women who are and feel superior?
Rating: 
Summary: the oprah crown will love "Wife".
Review: its not that it wasnt well written but rather I was disappointed at the way the main character chose to be in her life choices. "She" disappointed me. Initially it was compelling, or she was I should say, but she began to get irritating to me. It seems like this one will be a huge hit with the Oprah crowd, I just dont happen to fall into that category. If you want something with a little more "bite" to it, try "Thw Womans Room" bu marilyn french. I liked those characters better. I would love to read more by meg wolitzer but I want to see her characters in a little differant light. more gimption to them, if you would. keep plugginh Meg, youre talented, I just didnt care for the characters, but I like your wit!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful prose, disturbing ending
Review: Joan is a dutiful, honorable, and faithful wife. Her husband, we learn, is a pampered, ego-driven novelist who depends on his wife for support that goes beyond the call of "wifely" duty. The scene is Helsinki, where Joe is going to receive the prestigious Helsinki Prize. As always, Joan is accompanying him and through their trans-Atlantic journey, we journey through the marriage that is Joan and Joe. Their marriage is filled with typical ups and downs, but so much is never explained. As expected, Joe is a philanderer and makes no apologies for it. Joan isn't outraged--She is hurt, but that's as much as we know. So much is missing here that sometimes the character seems too distant. Still, Wolitzer's prose is incredibly brilliant and a wonderful departure from the adolescent sounding narratives that have flooded bookstores as of late. Of course, the "surprise" ending didn't surprise me at all. I have to admit that I was a bit angered after putting the book down. Without wanting to give too much away, my opinion of Joan was taken down a notch. I don't feel she was redeemed at all. But perhaps this is what life is really like. Whatever your opinion of the events of the plot, this is a 4 star book. Wolitzer's simple, straightforward style appeals to me. I will definitely read her next novel.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful prose, disturbing ending
Review: Joan is a dutiful, honorable, and faithful wife. Her husband, we learn, is a pampered, ego-driven novelist who depends on his wife for support that goes beyond the call of "wifely" duty. The scene is Helsinki, where Joe is going to receive the prestigious Helsinki Prize. As always, Joan is accompanying him and through their trans-Atlantic journey, we journey through the marriage that is Joan and Joe. Their marriage is filled with typical ups and downs, but so much is never explained. As expected, Joe is a philanderer and makes no apologies for it. Joan isn't outraged--She is hurt, but that's as much as we know. So much is missing here that sometimes the character seems too distant. Still, Wolitzer's prose is incredibly brilliant and a wonderful departure from the adolescent sounding narratives that have flooded bookstores as of late. Of course, the "surprise" ending didn't surprise me at all. I have to admit that I was a bit angered after putting the book down. Without wanting to give too much away, my opinion of Joan was taken down a notch. I don't feel she was redeemed at all. But perhaps this is what life is really like. Whatever your opinion of the events of the plot, this is a 4 star book. Wolitzer's simple, straightforward style appeals to me. I will definitely read her next novel.
Rating:
Summary: period piece
Review: Joan is a product of her time - those glorius 1950's when women went to college to get their MRS degree. Ther are some stereotypes that we've seen before - Joan meets Joe when she is his English student at Smith - but there is a lot of original and beautiful writing about the two main characters. Joe is a novelist who has achieved a certain amount of fame and the resulting adoration of his fans. These two made their bargain early on in their marriage and the story takes us through decades of the consequences. The author had some marvelous phrases and vivid imagery. While taking the journey through Joan and Joe's imperfect marriage over decades, we learn about their relationships with their children - let's just say that neither Joan nor Joe would probably win a Parent of the Year award. While I wasn't crazy about the ending, it certainly could be true to the characters and the time.
Rating:
Summary: Among the year's best
Review: Just a few paragraphs into Meg Wolitzer's The Wife and already you're hit with one of those sentences you have to go back for so you can taste its phrases a second time: "No one on this plane was fixated on death right now, the way we'd all been earlier, when, wrapped in the trauma of the roar and the fuel-stink and the distant, braying chorus of Furies trapped inside the engines, an entire planeload of minds--Economy, Business Class, and The Chosen Few--came together as one and urged this plane into the air like an audience willing a psychic's spoon to bend." The braying Furies for the moment appeased, Joan Castleman and her husband are in mid-air, en route to Finland, where Joe is slated to receive the Helsinki Prize for literature. He, at least, is enjoying the trip, and particularly the attentions of the stewardess, from whom he accepts slippers and nuts and cookies while his "ancient mechanism of arousal starts to whir like a knife sharpener inside him." "If that luscious cookie-woman had stripped to her waist and offered him one of her breasts, mashing the nipple into his mouth with the assured authority of a La Leche commandant, he would have taken it, no questions asked." Women are drawn to Joe, in part because of his successful career as a novelist, but also because he is one of those "men who own the world." They exude confidence. They are hyperactively sexual. Once among the fluttering women herself, Joan has spent decades watching her husband attract and enjoy others--while she pretended not to notice, or not to care, and while she subjugated her own talent to labor as his muse. At 35,000 feet in the air, bound for the crowning achievement of Joe's career, Joan decides that it has to stop. She will leave her husband when they get back home, after suffering through the coming bout of accolades. Starting with the revelation of Joan's decision, The Wife tells the story of the Castleman marriage, from ignominious beginning to polite cohabitation, in a series of reminiscences that, while jumping about chronologically, are never disjointed. Over the book's course the characters of Joe and his wife are revealed--his appetites and egoism, her enabling and skewed priorities--and the secret of their marriage is hinted at, and the tension--incredibly, for this sort of book--builds. When the end comes it is sudden and shocking and yet wholly prepared for. Wolitzer's book is among the best of the book-mom's year in reading. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: Anyone who has taken Women's Studies 101 will be quite bored
Review: Meg Wolitzer writes a mighty fine sentence, and while I found her plotting predictable, it is certainly competent. But the book bored me almost to tears. It's a slim novel, but at least a third of it repeats--sometimes in different words, but not always--the following sentiment: women have it tough, especially creative women. I agree that creative women do have it tough, tougher than creative men. In fact, I agree so wholeheartedly that I didn't need to hear it on every other page. The cast of characters includes:
-the woman who kills herself because she can't express herself
-the woman who writes well but can't get any respect
-the woman who writes well and does get respect, but only because of her famous husband
-the woman who writes well and does get respect, but only because she's crazy
-the woman who writes well but can only do it under cover of her husband
-the woman who can't write well but does get respect because she's hot
-the woman who can write well and does get respect, but who hates all other women If you want to read a book that's trying to raise consciousness about the issues of second-wave feminism, I recommend Marilyn French's The Women's Room, a book that sounds dated because it is dated, and that has more complicated and interesting characters.
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