
Critic Reviews
Good
Based on 18 reviews on

A Woman's Battles and Transformations is a portrait of the author's mother by the acclaimed writer of the international bestsellers The End of Eddy and History of Violence.
One day, Édouard Louis finds a photograph of his mother from twenty years ago. A picture of a happy young woman full of hopes and dreams. Growing up, Édouard knew only his mother's sadness, as she found herself trapped in the humdrum life of a housewife, and her struggles against the dominant world of men. What happened in those years since the photo was taken? Then, at the age of forty-five, his mother frees herself from this oppression. She leaves her husband and her old life behind to start anew in Paris. A Woman's Battles and Transformations is Édouard Louis's most tender book yet. It reckons with the cruel systems that govern our lives, with politics and power--and with the possibility of escape. It is an exquisite and loving portrait of a mother, and an honoring of her self-discovery and liberation as she chooses to live on her own terms."The writing [in A Woman's Battles and Transformations] is intensely lyrical but the subject rubs up against the political . . . Moving and beautiful."
--David Keymer, Library Journal (starred)