Heroines

It's not often that I don't finish a book, I am stubborn enough to power through even mediocre works. But I did not finish this. It's just a pile of disjointed self important self pitying artist wank. The concept of seeing one's self and life through the lens of famous (or forgotten, less famous than they should be) people of the past is fine enough but that does not come across here at all, it reads more as wishing to be these people while doing nothing of import. This was sold to me as some sort of feminist manifesto, championing the forgotten women overshadowed by men or just ignored because of their gender, bringing their stories forward and of finding connection with them, but unless it starts to do so very late in the book that is not what is going on. It is also frustrating that this reads as a hectic jottings of a scattered person writing notes for themselves without ever editing for comprehension or cohesion, so you can't even follow who is being referenced half the time - I guess if you already had an encyclopedic knowledge of literary wives listed by only their first names without mention of the more famous husband's name and only contextualized by some obscure factoid about their life, it might be easier.