Valentine's Day: Women Against Men - Stories of Revenge [Paperback]

Agatha Christie (Author), Alice Munro (Author), Joyce Carol Oates (Author), Carol Shields (Author), Fay Weldon (Author), et al (Author), Alice Thomas Ellis (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2003

Alice Thomas Ellis introduces a collection of revenge stories by some contemporary women writers. She studies the history of women's revenge against men, and emerges with enlightening insights into the dynamic differences that place the sexes in passionate opposition. This book seeks not to relay the ever burgeoning factual accounts of how women get their own back, but to show their reactions to betrayal, cruelty and simple nastiness through the filter of fiction. One of the most satisfying means of revenge, as these authors clearly realise, is to put the offender in a story.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Disagreeable, dismal, distasteful, and depressing at best--deeply disturbing, depraved, and degenerate at worst--all these adjectives could apply to this perverse St. Valentine's Day love offering from the UK, a gathering of tales of often gruesome revenge of women against men. But, in fact, there's a certain uplift to be enjoyed as the traditionally disenfranchised off their oppressors, covertly or otherwise. Readers will see women depicted as the species' more practical murderers, committing sometimes maliciously premeditated acts of slaughter to achieve freedom, independent wealth, or the peace of mind that comes from definitively resolving "unsatisfactory" situations, according to editor Ellis' introduction. With contributors including Agatha Christie, Fay Weldon, Joyce Carol Oates, and Alice Munro, readers drawn to such nasty delights will find this hard to put down. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Alice Thomas Ellis was born in Liverpool and grew up largely on the North Wales coast, where many of her novels are set. Graduating from the Liverpool College of Art, she rebelled against the religion of her parents, converting to Roman Catholicism. She soon departed for London and became part of the bohemian crowd to gather around the Kings Road in the 1950s. Catholicism and feminism are constant themes throughout her work which has included: The 27th Kingdom (short-listed for Booker Prize), The Fly in the Ointment trilogy and numerous nonfiction works.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Duckworth Pub (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0715631403
• ISBN-13: 978-0715631409
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,929,186 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #6 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > British

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars If you're having a "bad Man Day" . . ., June 7, 2011

By 

PJ Coldren (Saint Helen, MI, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Valentine's Day: Women Against Men - Stories of Revenge (Paperback)

This is a book of short stories, stories about revenge, stories written from the point of view of a wronged woman. Some of them are very entertaining. Some are predictable. Some of the writers are very, very good. If you are having a moment, or a day, or a chunk of your life when men are on your big-time s**t list - this is a book for you. If, on the other hand, you are OK with the men in your life, the writing is mostly good enough to make this a worth-while read.

5 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars a collection of mind-bogglingly stupid stories, December 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Valentine's Day: Women Against Men - Stories of Revenge (Duck Series) (Paperback)

when i picked this book up at the library and saw artemisia gentileschi's painting, "judith slaying holofernes", on the cover and the title "women against men: revenge stories" i was thinking, "oh boy, this looks like it'll probably have some stories about women getting some sadistic revenge on rapists, or girlfriend/wife beaters, or child molesters or some scumbags like that." i was curious to see what ahem, imaginative forms of revenge some women came up with. i wanted to read these stories and smile or chuckle, and say "yeah! right on!" instead, i found that almost all the stories were incredibly stupid. most of them were either about women getting revenge on cheating husbands, or you couldn't even figure out what form the revenge took (some stories, the revenge just simply seemed nonexistent), or even figure out who was the recipient of the revenge. one of the stories, a mom gets revenge on her slutty daughters by sleeping w/one of the men they were all battling to get into bed! uh, i thought this book was women against men?!?. many of the women characters were spoiled rich wives, or just people you couldn't even really sympathize with because of their pettiness, pathetic-ness, or just plain out crappy personalities. about 20% of the stories the women got revenge through feeding the man something yucky or lethal. not a single rape revenge story. only one story was about revenge on a cruel, physically abusive husband, and in the other stories where the husbands may have been physically abusive, that fact was mentioned nonchalantly, like it takes a backseat to his cheating or calling his wife "fatty" (sticks and stones, people, sticks and stones... if he treats you like crap, leave him!). now, of course cheating is not a good thing, but it's not like women don't cheat either, and there are worse things a person could do to you. human relationships are too complex for cheating to be a crime punishable by death. anyway, i don't think this book is something that feminists can be proud of. the only reason i give this book two stars instead of one is to acknowledge a couple of the decent stories... probably agatha christie's is one of the best of the lot. all i can say is, if you're curious, check it out from your local library, or buy it used at a really cheap price... maybe someone else would find something worthwhile in many of the stories, but for me i found most to be very stupid, either badly/cheesily written, or crappy story-wise.