Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen

An incredibly interesting and inspiring story. I don’t normally read memoirs but this was hugely Enjoyable and incredibly sad at times. Highly recommended xx

This was originally published in 1972, although the bulk of the novel's events are set in the 1950s and 1960s. The story covers the period in one woman's life between being made teen beauty queen at age 15 and being a mother in her early 30s. The main character, Sasha Davis, is beautiful and sees her life defined by her looks - she becomes quite obsessed with people finding her attractive and the idea of losing her beauty as she ages, ideas prevalent in the 1950s American society in which she lives. Over the course of the novel, she experiences the darker side of life and talks openly about subjects that would have been (and possible still are) taboo: menstruation, sex outside marriage, abortion, female empowerment and ambition, sexuality and divorce.

You can certainly see why this was a ground-breaking book when it was published in the early 1970s. The society it depicts, with women treated as second class citizens without drive or independent thought, was the recent past and something the feminist movement was trying to change. The idea that women wouldn't work after marriage and would become domestic goddesses and models of devoted motherhood were still embedded in society as the traditional ideal.

What I expected was an outdated snapshot of a time that would feel a million years from the present. What I actually read was depressingly relevant to modern society. The recent #MeToo and #Time'sUp movements, as well as ongoing discussions of the gender pay gap and the representation of women in certain industries and at senior levels, show that equality is still a pipe dream. The things I expected to feel old fashioned about the book still resonated; the obsession with beauty and not ageing, the misogynistic attitudes of some of the men, the sexual double standards...although there has been some progress since the 1950s, it is all still so evident within our own society. I doubt there is a woman reading this novel who could say they have never encountered some of these supposedly outdated attitudes in recent times.

The book itself is engaging and pacy. Sasha is an engaging heroine as she navigates her own rather unconventional path through life, although I found the non-linear narrative a bit distracting at times.

I would recommend this book, but would also suggest that it isn't a comfortable read for those who expect it to be about old-fashioned gender stereotypes. It feels fresh and lively and current and, above all else, important. Read it to marvel at how far we have come in some ways, but how little distance we have travelled in others.