The Stepford Wives [Paperback]

And he manages to best that book with "The Stepford Wives," which if anything, should be used in a study for subtlety, less-is-more, and incredible foreshadowing. Re-reading the novel and knowing what's going to happen, it's amazing the way he drops clues, in the most inconspicuous of places. And the way he writes scenes--he's very concise about what details he puts in, and while he doesn't go overboard, he gives you the one or two details that are absolutely perfect, and you feel like you know everything.

The characters are also finely drawn. You learn a lot about Joanna, just in tiny details, and how she is with her children, her husband, and her friends. ...P>Levin's ending, as others have noted, is also quite amazing, and you're almost too out of breath to realize what has happened. I remember the first time I read the last section, with Ruthanne (a black woman who's the newest to move to Stepford after Joanna) and her husband, and it wasn't until I read it a second time that I just got so freaked out, just in the subtle hints. And how it almost seems to end abruptly, and yet ends at the perfect moment.

...

The story is very simple but gripping and well written. Joanna Eberhart moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter, and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of maidenform.

Joanna manages to find several like minded women such as herself. Yet, when they, too, become addicted to housework after having a romantic weekend alone with their respective husbands, Joanna becomes convinced that the Stepford Men's Association has hatched a sinister plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Read the book and find out. You will not be disappointed.