The word “spinster”…what image does it conjure in your mind’s eye? A wrinkled old woman? For me, it is a spool of thread, or a spindle. It turns out my imagination wasn’t far from reality, as the word spinster used to mean “a woman who spins”. Nowadays though, it is applied to an “old maid”, or a woman who is older than the typical marrying age. But what is the usual age of matrimony for a woman? In some cultures it is in the early teens, and in others, it is pretty much any age above 20.
No, Spinster is not a book about the history of unmarried women, though it does touch on the subject often. Rather, it is a book of lament, and the majority of it is spent focusing on the author and how she feels about herself, and other women who are single. I am coming up on one year of marriage so at first I wasn’t sure how much I would get out of this book. I could relate with a lot of what the author said–how being single doesn’t always have to be lonely, and sometimes it can be exactly what we need. The world tells us we need to have a man by our side, but do we really?
It is up to everyone to form their own answer. After all, everyone is unique and will feel differently about being single, or having a companion. A lot of this book was spent looking at the lives of women that the author admired–women from the past who were feminists in a time when men and women were not equals. These parts were quite boring and a bit long-winded. Spinster would have been much more appealing had it been more of a biography, and not a history of the spinster.
Review of Advance Reader Copy
Content Analysis:
Profanity/Language: 2 religious exclamations;1 scatological word;1 anatomical term; 1 F-Word derivative.
Violence/Gore: A dead body is mentioned to be found in an apartment, it is described as being smelly; a person is mentioned to have committed suicide by chloroform; death threats are made; a person is mentioned to have died of natural causes.
Sex/Nudity: Homosexuality is referred to in a few instances; sex is referred to multiple times; adults kiss several times; a woman is mentioned to sleep with multiple partners/lovers; woman refers to herself as “not a sexual being”; a woman is mentioned to cheat on her boyfriend; a woman mentions losing her virginity; a woman undresses erotically for a man in one brief scene with little description; a woman is mentioned to swim nude, no description is given; an adulterous mistress is referred to; sexual exploration, being comfortable sexually, is mentioned and discussed; minors are mentioned to be sexually active with no explicit detail in one part of this book.
Mature Subject Matter:
Death, sexual exploration, cancer, poverty, divorce.
Alcohol / Drug Use:
Adults drink alcohol in several instances; adults smoke.
