Book Review

A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy (2009)

EW's GRADE
B+

Details Writer: Charlotte Greig; Genres: Drama, Fiction; Publisher: Other Press

 A Girl\'s Guide to Modern European Philosophy by Charlotte Greig
A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy by Charlotte Greig

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+

Originally posted May 19, 2009 Published in issue #1049 May 29, 2009 Order article reprints

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