Customer Reviews

Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen: A Novel

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is my favorite book of all time. I was suprised to read the other reviews, as they suggest that the women's movement has corrected all the injustices described in the book. Unfortunately the situations the author speaks of are almost as real today as they were then. While women have more financial options than in the past, those who think these situations won't resonate with 'the pretty girls' of today are living in a dream world. Plus, it's a great read.

I'm 21 years old and was given this book to read for my U.S. Women's History class that I knew I'd hate (the class, not the book) because I'm no history buff, as this class was an unfortuantely forced elective. I was merely looking forward to reading some of the literature that the professor mandated, such as Work by Louisa May Alcott and Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs; however stumbling onto Memoirs Of An Ex Prom Queen, I opened up to a random page and read a little bit to see what I was getting myself into. This was unlike any other female writer that I've read and did read in that particular class. I knew that ending the semester, this book would still be in my head and hands. I started from the beginning and couldn't put it down with my mind swarming inside and out of the words that dive further and further into Sasha's world of sexuality and ambition. As an English: Creative Writing major, I found this to be my literary muse. Of course, I've always found creative inspiration in plays and poetry, but this work of fiction opened up my eyes to new depths of writing as the woman that I'm growing to be. Everything that Alix Kates Shulman touched on was clever and thought-provoking, relatable and enticing, as well as genious and raw. It reminded me a bit of Sylvia Plath's The Belljar (although that's much heavier and serious to take on) because of the brutal honesty and irony that Sasha expresses in scrutinizing herself and relationships. As a young woman approaching the age that Sasha starts at in the beginning of the novel, all of those qualities and characteristics of the story are amplified to me, although I'm not married, in an anonymous mid-West town, or in a post World War II society. She writes with such gripping reality that could truly touch every woman. For those who are strongly against promiscuity, this perhaps is not the book for you, but if you have an open mind and are willing to hear her philosophies of intimate relations that are both viable and provocative, meet Sasha Davis. I've read this book twice already and know that whenever I need inspiration or to have a little laugh, this is the book to turn to. Even though I know what happens at the end and in the beginning of her story, reacquainting myself with Sasha is stimulating, rewarding, and entertaining. For the holidays, I know that I'm going to give this book to every friend of mine. I've read a variety of talented "dead-white-male writers" like Jack Kerouac, the recently deceased Hunter S. Thompson, William Faulkner, and Ernest Hemingway and they write like men write, but Alix Kates Shulman rivals those classic writers, epitomizing how a real woman tells a story about a real woman.

This is the most well written piece I have read since dabbling in the American cannon in my college literature classes. It is very frank, sexual and revealing. And the language is abosultely edible! Sasha is raw and on the edge of profound feminine insights, yet is battered again and again by the male-ism that dominates her culture. Women who have had few lovers may find this a difficult read, but that's the challenge. This book was not only a delight for the time period it represented, but I also appreciated the disturbing and yet real male/female scenarios that, although "dated," have given me a insight into raising raising my own young boys ... different from their grandfathers.

This is not my usual type of book, but I when I picked it up at random in a book store 20 years ago, the author's frank style sort of grabbed me, and I ended up reading the whole thing.

Shulman's memoir pre-dates many of the later works of this type since she grew up in the 40's and 50's, which basically just goes to show you that none of this is very new from the standpoint of women's consciousness. I was a grad student in the 70's and 80's, and by then we were solidly post-free love, post-sexual liberation, and post 60's sexuality in general. This author's discussion of these issues pre-dates this by at least 20 years, so the book is interesting if only for that.

I decided to read all of the books from this author after browsing her last book (Drinking from the Rain, I believe) and getting absolutely hooked on it. Her writing really appeals to me. It is not easy for me to understand Sasha, the main character in this book, probably because of the generation gap, but also because I couldn't accept her to be so strong and so weak at the same time. The ending is also very confusing, I didn't expect marriage and maternity to have such a strong effect on her (negative, from my view). I will be checking out here at amazon to see if other people can help me to make sense of the book ending. I intend to read other books from Ms. Alix K. Shulman pretty soon.

I just finished reading Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen [in a span of 24 hours, including 12 hours sleep], and struggling not to sound cliche, this book really changed my view on the world. Even though it was published in 1969, Sasha's experiences in a men-dominated society, especially as a teenager, are not too far from the world we live in today. We are still expected to get married and have children, and if we balk at the idea, though not said aloud, many still view us as abnormal, or lacking affection and maternal instincts - frigid. As I said in the title, this book, for me, was depressing in a personal context, and opened my eyes to the fact that inevitably, we will be the ones stuck with the children, the ones going unsatisfied, and the ones taken and [taken advantage of] for the pleasure of a man. So I don't like men too much, oh well. And even if you don't share the same views as I, don't hesitate to pick up this book because it will have an effect on you that no other book that I know of can deliver.

~another 16 year old reviewer named Alison

I enjoyed the book but found it hard to believe that toward the end of the 1940's that this young
woman was having sex and that by her mid twenties she had traveled to Europe and had close to 30 lovers. I always thought the sexual revolution started in the late 60's and that most young woman of her time were virgins or MAYBE had one or so sexual experiences but this seemed unbelieveable. I enjoyed the book until she and Will had Andy. I understand her absolute love for her daughter, but the book seemed to go downhill from there. It was almost like a rush to an ending.

I recently finished "Memoirs" and I can not stop thinking about it. I had never read any thing like it and it has greatly impacted my life and the way I perceive things. I received "Memoirs" as a Christmas prestent in 1999, when I was fourteen. It was only this past Easter vacation however that I got a chance to really read and listen to what Sasha, the protagonist, had to tell me. Sasha was born during the War and lived in a mid-western middle class town. She was surrounded by all the femal sterotypes of the day, but because of her intelligence was able to pursue some of her dreams. Sasha's fears and desires are all the things that we think but don't talk about. Almost everyone has felt the degrading affects of disrespect, including Sasha. While some of her descriptions of situations are accompanied by swears I feel that you have to look past it and put yourself in the situation. This book gives you a clear picture of an almost date rape, the confusions of growing up, and the day to day struggles that women go/went through. I highly reccommend this book to mature teenages as well as adults. This book has made me realize just how lucky I am to be living in a time where women are now able to talk, instead of keeping their secrets bottled up.

~a 16 Year old reader

I picked up this book from a friend of mine pretty much at random. Being a male in the new millenium, my first instinct was to chastise the protagonist (Sasha) for not having better sense than to look beyond the limitations society set for her (social limitations, that is, not the sexual discrimination in the academic setting she was in during her college years). I mean, here we've got a woman intelligent enough to devour volumes of philosophy, a woman who "gorges" herself on knowledge and thinking, only to have it defeated by her own vanity, a vanity that is carefully constructed by Shulman as the product of her closeted, small-town environment. I also had a problem with this vanity outliving her years of travel and adventure in Europe. Then again, the perceptions we build about ourselves and the world around us are hard to knock down, especially when constructed during our youth. But to me, Sasha had plenty of opportunities to escape the boundaries of her self-imposed limitations (if not the external ones), and she kept on blowing it. As a result, my sympathy for her only goes so far (although are we supposed to sympathize with her? or examine her as a model of universal struggles within the women's movement?).

After being told to read this "great feminist novel" I picked it up, planning to read it on a trip. While it wasn't what I expected, I can relate to Sasha's wanting to be beautiful, but what I found annoying is her need for every man to find her desirable. Does she really need to know if her therapist finds her attractive? She expected a perfect life, because of her looks, but her life wasn't any different then a realistic one.