La femme gelée

Annie Ernaux describes the life of a woman who grows up in the 1950s in a provincial French town, studies, and gets married. She had once believed that she would have a life of freedom, but she finds that marriage and motherhood bring housework, expectations, and loss of her own time. The narrator calls herself "I" and looks back at how she came to accept a conventional role, and at how a female identity is shaped by family, school, and society.

Ernaux writes in short, plain sentences, drawing on her own experience. It suits readers who like autobiographical writing with a sociological edge, and anyone interested in the experience of women in postwar France.

Deep, inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

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