The Female Persuasion

By Meg Wolitzer Chatto & Windus, 464pp, £14.99

Meg Wolitzer’s 12th book follows Greer Kadetsky, an ambitious but shy student who is struggling to figure out who she is and how she fits into the modern world. Seeking a sense of purpose, Greer’s life is turned upside down when she meets Faith Frank, a prominent secondwave feminist speaker. Greer soon finds herself drawn to Faith’s energy and ultimately ends up working for her after she graduates. Through the pair’s complex relationship of mentor and mentee, Wolitzer explores important themes of how to live a politically meaningful life and what feminism means to different generations of women. There’s lots to enjoy here – the plot is fast-paced and you’ll come to care about and deeply invest in the characters. However, although this is a book that grapples with plenty of the big gender topics, it fails to say anything particularly radical about them.