I had heard about The Stepford Wives — had heard enough to at least get the cultural references whenever someone called Laura Bush a Stepford wife, but I never bothered with reading the book. I did see the 2004 movie version, which had an ending of the exact fucking opposite of the book.

The back of my copy reads

At once a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a savage commentary on a media-driven society that values the pursuit of youth and beauty at all costs, The Stepford Wives is a novel so frightening in its final implications that the title itself has earned a place in the American lexicon.

“Savage commentary on a media-driven society”, to me, speaks to a critical analysis of media culture, consumption, production, and marketing. While the book brand-name dropped a couple times, the only piece that I can loosely construe as being anywhere near ‘commentary’ on media is found on pages 42-3:

That’s what she was, Joanna felt suddenly. That’s what they all were, all the Stepford wives: actresses in commercials, pleased with detergents and floor wax, with cleansers, shampoos, and deodorants. Pretty actresses, big in the bosom but small in the talent, playing suburban housewives unconvincingly, too nicey-nice to be real. [emphasis in original]

What am I supposed to take away from this book? To never get married, and secondly, to never let a male partner join a “men’s association”, let alone watch commercials? Writing in 1972, perhaps I’m immune from whatever Levin was trying to get across to a woman audience at that time.

For all the cultural hype, I think it lacks full engagement.

Have you read it? What are your thoughts? Am I right to hate it as much as I did the movie?