Customer Reviews:
 Perfect for research January 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
To be honest, if de Beauvoir had not had a relationship with Satre, I probably wouldn't have picked this book up, but that fact kept me going to the end. In the event, I loved reading her story, but much more the story of her tragic friend who lived the Christian life and obeyed her repressed mother. It's a wonderful depiction of upper-middle-class morals at the beginning of 20th Century Paris.
It makes you think! August 26, 2002
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
I first encountered this at school, but that was some 25 years ago and I was dissuaded by a teacher from finishing it when she claimed that the concepts would be too adult for me. As I was only 14, she was probably right; although I found it very readable then, in a 'grown up school story' kind of way, I am getting much more from it now.I'm not well versed in the thinking of de Beauvoir, and not sure I'd agree with many of her opinions (her pro-abortion views horrified me) but this book made me consider deeply the reasons why middle-class people become socialists, and made me also think about the shackles which bound many intelligent women in the early years of the last century.... Far from being deeply intellectual in its approach, this book is very readable, and made me want to find out more about de Beauvoir's life and work.
 Thoroughly absorbing July 2, 2002
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
I picked Memoirs up in my school library, read the first few pages and was completely hooked. I haven't read any of de Beauvoir's or Sartre's work but would love to read more, starting with the next three volumes of her autobiography! It was intensly absorbing and drew me completely into 20s Paris; in addition I was fascinated by the frequent references to Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes (read it, it's magical) and other literature. De Beauvoir has a memory for detail and builds up a vivid and often moving picture of her life and her emotions as a child and later.
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