I always enjoy Meg Wolitzer's writing and character development. Unfortunately, this book wasn't my favourite and I found it difficult to stay connected to the story.

In the light of the "Me Too" campaign this book felt very apt, with one woman's entire life and viewpoint shaped by an incident in her first week at Uni.
This is an oversimplification of course, there are many other interesting threads of plot to unravel, and like all the best books the characters are very real, and make huge mistakes which have many ramifications. I did feel that it was a little long and with a few too many plot strands but I didn't actually become bored with the book.

It pains me to say this, but for a book purporting to be about contemporary feminism this feels superficial, undercooked and really quite boring. The plot meanders around without ever reaching cruising speed, and switches around between characters in almost random fashion.

Important issues about rape/sexual violence, porn, misogyny, gender pay-gap, reproductive rights, what it means to be a political activist are all ticked off as present and correct but the text never really engages with them in either depth or meaningfully. And the neat-and-tidy ending has a vaguely Disney air about it.

Wolitzer does make some sharp and witty observations but they're too few and far between to liven this up in the way it needs. It almost feels like the book wants to be nice so as not to upset the conventional status quo too much. By the time Greer gets her happy ending, I was skim-reading with gritted teeth... Not a promising first date for me and Wolitzer, then.