Customer Reviews

The Improvised Woman : Single Women Reinventing Single Life

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've just recently picked this book up again and read it through for the second time! So inspiring. I always felt "different" when it came to relationships with men & what my friends were doing or felt. Why didn't I dream about marriage? Why when I thought I had found "the one" (even got engaged) did it seem like a sham? All my friends say "you just haven't met the right guy. When you do, you'll feel differently."

I don't believe them. I love men, but I just can't see giving up my privacy & autonomy. I always excel at the first year or two of a relationship because you still have that to some extent...then they want more, or they want their mommies, or to go to that "next-level." ugh. I also have NO positive role models to prove me otherwise...

This book has shown me that HALLELUJAH! it's not just me. That I don't have to get married. That I can love and live and be free and not feel like I missed out on something. That marriage is NOT the end-all-be-all of what we (men and women) have to aspire to. And it's interesting that, being in the "Gen X" grouping, many of them/us have still been "programmed" to believe this! Isn't that amazing? But let me tell you something...my 80-year-old grandmother agrees with me and the book! She just wishes she could have gotten her two cents in! Thanks Marcelle!

I'm single, I'm 30 and I don't feel like I'm a pariah so this book just wasn't for me. I was really hoping it would be some uplifting, positive stories about women I could look to as role models.
This book is more on how to "deal" with being single...really more for those who are RECENTLY single than Reinventing single.

on the surface i wouldn't have thought to order this book (from amazon of course), since the subject seems like something i've already read too much about. but after reading a review of it in the new yorker, i was intrigued. as it turns out, what i'd already read on the subject has simply not been of this caliber. far from some feminist rant about how women don't need men, or the alternative--how women are pining for men--clements' fascinating interviews,her analysis of woman's role past, present and possibly future and her charming, informative interstitial comments make this book one i found compulsively readable and thought-provoking. (And i have been married for most of my adult life--still am!). Unlike so many other women who write about "women's subjects", a humorless lot that seems more interested in rhetoric pro or con, and heaps one bogus statistic on top of another to "prove" some preconceived notion, clements' work has the ring of truth. More amazingly, she has a sense of humor, a sense of history, a sense of irony, and a killer sense of the telling anecdote, the revealing quote. she doesn't softpedal anything or anyone, she doesn't offer easy solutions, and she is neither glib nor ponderous. marcelle clements, whoever you are, you deserve a huge following, and not just among single women. For anyone who's interested in 20th-century social trends, in the ongoing "war between the sexes", in what has been happening to marriage and the family, in modern life itself, this is must reading. It's also supremely entertaining.

I was looking for a book that was positive about women being single because I enjoy being single and it's so hard to find books or stories about people who are actually happy with the single lifestyle. This book isn't it. For every positive story there are at least 2 negative stories and it's hard to weed through to find the positive ones. I only got a quarter of the way through before I decided I couldn't finish this book. Some of these women sound so pathetic. They don't like being single and they don't like being married so they join together to commiserate their unhappiness. Just too pathetic.

How refreshing to finally find a book that acknowledges that there are plenty of single women who are happy that way, who do not hate men, and who are not "mentally ill" or "maladjusted" (unless you define those terms as "rejecting the expected roles"). As one of the women interviewed in the book says, "It's not the men [I dislike], it's the roles." I wouldn't be surprised if there are also plenty of men who want to stay single for similar reasons --independence, privacy, and not wanting to play a role in which the tedium and/or pain outweigh the rewards.

Are we women going to stop reading all the books -written basically by men- telling us what is that "they" want from us, how should we "behave" in order to get them, and so so .
Is anybody,is any of us going to be brave enough to stand and say "I don't give a dime and excuse me, by the way, when are "you "going to care for what I want?
Marcelle Clements book make so much sense and is an oasis of relief for all of us who choose to be single just because is fabulous to be happy with your life because of life itself and not just because there's another person to give it any sense.
I recommend this book over and over and all the women that I know who read it, they all felt more blessed after.

Marcelle Clements picked an interesting subject for The Improvised Woman, and amoung the interviews with single women in this book some are insightful. However, some are repetitive, and some just plain uninteresting. Also, Clements writing can get monotonous, and she fails to draw meaningful conclusions in this work.
I would recommend this book to be checked out from a library or purchased used, because it is unlikely that one would read it a second time.

A fantastc book! I found this book when my girlfriend and I were sitting in B&N at 66th & Broadway in NYC last Saturday. and I would recommend it to my best female friends(my girlfriend did not like the book).

Today there are more & more independent guys who love independent women, while more and more independent women are single. I'd like to argue that the women interviewed in the book did not choose to be single. They chosed not to pursue couplehood because of the difficulies in finding Mr. Right, as well as the frustrations and disappoinemnts out of their past soulmate searching experience.

As more people get connected through the net, as more balanced work-life relationship and living styles emerge, as society and culture becomes even more open and diversified, I think it will be easier for every one to relate to other like-minded people. To be independent & connected at the same time - that's where we are going.

BTW, I'm a single guy who grew up in China and now in my late 20s, working as an entrepreneur, living in New York city, and having a few good single female friends.

Buy the book.

What I enjoyed most is Clements' insight, her wit, her dry, wry commentary, the way she'll turn something over as if it's a unique piece of sushi, never before seen on earth, but edible. The premise that today's single woman is a phenomenon we don't yet know, unquantified, unexamined, with more resources than anyone realizes, works well. Anecdotes and speculations by the many individuals engaged my interest, usually, serving to break up the commentary. We are let in on a whole range of elations, bafflements, hardships, achievements, guided by Clements' clear and clever voice. It's a tough era for all and the dance of the sexes has never been more challenging, but this book is both helpful and delighting.

I found the ideas and perspectives that the interviewees had to be very thought provoking. As a single (divorced) woman I appreciated the various viewpoints of these women, although I did not necessarily hear my 'voice' among them.

I enjoyed the chapter summaries more than I enjoyed the actual snippets from interviews. Ms. Clements seemed able to sum up the general feelings very well, and the actual interviews were hard to follow at times. All in all a very good read though.

I am curious how different things would be if such a book were researched for married women. Probably not very different.