“Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and me, and in many other women [...]. But she lives; for great poets do not die.” This is an essay about women and fiction, but through Woolf‘s poetic language it felt almost fictional at times. I loved every part of it, I could honestly write a whole essay about my thoughts on this myself. The book discovers the obstacles female writers had to overcome and how it limited their minds and greatness. It takes a deeper look at great writers such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and many more, exploring what made them triumph over society’s standards, what held them back and belittled them and how they weren’t able to broaden their horizon and later let that influence their work to the same extent male authors could during that time. I also loved the exploration of the ‘What if Shakespeare had a gifted sister?‘ so much, especially the way Woolf refers to it again in the end was just powerful. She discusses many topics that are still very relevant in today‘s society with such outstanding eloquence and intelligence, outlining what it means for a writer to not even have a room of one’s own to write uninterruptedly and in calm, as great writing requires intellectual freedom as well as personal space. This book really opened my eyes to a lot of things and I can only recommend everyone to read it.

It’s true and she should say it but please someone should have gotten her an editor so I could have been spared reading one page after another of her stream of consciousness. Seriously tho, I think she addressed very important and super interesting topics and very well so but I cannot stand SOC which is basically all you get if you read VW.