I absolutely adored this exploration of heroines in literature and it has left me pondering those that have inspired my own life.

My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Vintage for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

This book would have been so much better as two books. As it stands, it's a mishmash of memoir and literary criticism. The memoir part was really interesting. The author is an Iraqi Jew who's family was forced out of Iraq due to their religion. They live a very specific, sheltered life in England, wishing to go back home, but knowing the entire time that they can't. They love their homeland and they love their religion and the two are currently incompatible. It's heart-rending.

The literary criticism part is also incredibly interesting, but it's muddled by her own personal thoughts on the female characters, and she is VERY feminist and VERY sure of her personal beliefs on the aforementioned characters. We differ in opinion. Opinion isn't bad, but when I want literary criticism, I want MORE than opinion, I want background and a crazy bibliography and in-depth thought. This is not what I felt was offered in this book.

As a whole, the memoir and the literary criticism parts did not mesh well. Just as you were getting into the memoir parts, her opinions on a character in a book would get in the way. When you get into the literary criticism, a story from her life that kinda linked to what she was saying but didn't really would pop up and take you out of the literary discussion.

I would love to read a straight-up memoir by this author. Her life, especially her family history, sounds so interesting and it is really rather topical now, which is important. Those stories need to be told and re-told until those in charge realize that compassion should be the word of the day, not NIMBY.

I would pass on the book of literary criticism by this author, unless it got some heavy citation on the re-write. I just don't agree with her POV and without citation, it is rather weightless to me.

So, end thoughts? Not a bad book, but the title promises a lot and ends up giving both more, and less, than what is promised. More via memoir, less literary criticism. Two stars because I wasn't overly enthralled with the writing style, the opinions and the title left me wanting a LOT more than I got. If you go into this knowing it's not the literary critique the title alludes to, you might enjoy it more than I did. Not against this author, I really do want that memoir/bio, but this wasn't the best intro to her that I could have read.