Monday 17 May 2010

A woman's guide to adultery (Clewlow)

The woman's guide to adultery sounded like an intriguing title and the book itself was interesting. It is the tale of a group of men and women belonging to a university community who are all brought together through a network of extra marital affairs. The principal character Rose is violently against this culture and hugely disapproving of the relationships that her two best friends have with married men and their determination to break up the marriages. But then Rose falls in love with her tutor, Paul, who is also married...

Ultimately, I didn't like this book because I disagreed so violently with the premise. I believe strongly in monogamous relationships and fully believe that in the right relationship there would never be any need for adultery, and I would rather not be in a wrong relationship than one which needed to be supplemented by extra-relationship activity. On the other hand, the message of the book was also that affairs with married men cause pain for the women involved, which some way goes to support my beliefs.

It's just been published once by Virago, with a modern style cover.

1 comment:

  1. I love the title! But I think I'd have a hard time with the premise too.

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