EW.com
A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy (2009)
EW's GRADE
B+Details Release Date: May 12, 2009; Writer: Charlotte Greig; Genres: Drama, Fiction; Publisher: Other Press
Ignore the breezy title and coy, crossed-ankles cover; beneath its slick chick-lit veneer, Charlotte Greig's novel, A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy, is a ruminative coming-of-age tale devoid of the genre's usual tropes. Caught at the crest of feminism's second wave, 20-year-old philosophy major Susannah partakes of the freedoms of the 1970s — campus protests, sex with both her older boyfriend and a fellow student — but when her world suddenly capsizes, she retreats to the men on the pages of her textbooks: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kierkegaard. Readers might not find much escape in Guide's conflicts, but Susannah's story feels all the more authentic for it. B+
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