Consider Bolick's five awakeners. Which of these women inspired you most and why?

Consider Bolick's five awakeners: essayist Maeve Brennan, columnist Neith Boyce, social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton. Which of these women inspired you most and why?

I would have to say I was inspired by all of these women. Each had so much to offer to the reader, and certainly gave them a lot to think about. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland should be required reading for every student, she was so far ahead of her time. Edith Wharton is well known for her novels, but was also an architect and designer of gardens. All have so much more to offer than what we see on the surface and isn't this true of everyone?

Neith Boyce inspired me most mainly because she had a positive and contemporary mindset about the life of a "bachelor" woman. Boyce saw her life as a great adventure and she seemed to be very brave and confident about herself as a single, career woman.

I had recently found a copy of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Wallpaper and became fascinated by her. I an familiar with Millay and Wharton but new to Boyce and Brennan I always love reading a book that leads you to a new author or another book. This one did.

Edith Wharton would be at the top of my list. I love her writing. I did not know about her life that Bolick describes so it is not her life that inspired me. It is her ability to write novels that I want to reread. I was totally unfamiliar with the essays of Maeve Brennan, and I will most likely try to find them to read at my own leisure. Because I wanted to like Spinster so much and didn't, her awakeners did not inspire me as they did her. I would have chosen others. That being said, Maeve Brenner's story did not inspire me, but I will remember the tragedy of it.

Neith Boyce. She was the only one of the awakeners with whom I wasn't familiar, and I really liked her story and her preference for the term "Bachelor woman"over the judgmental "spinster." Boyce was ahead of her time; her thinking was progressive and, if she were alive in the social media era, she would perhaps have banished the term "spinster" from our vocabulary all together. I've always hated that word, and for a 19th Century woman to have done the same appeals to me.

I honestly didn't feel much connection to any of Bolick's awakeners. Or to Bolick herself.

I loved reading about each of the awakeners, but particularly about Edna St. Vincent Millay. Millay's poetry was prevalent in my childhood textbooks, but nothing was known of her. I would imagine that her biography wouldn't have been held up to children as a model!

I found her choice of sexual freedom during a time when this was truly unusual and considered by many to be risque was bold and a strong example of self expression.

I enjoyed reading about these five women. They were the substance of the book. I have always admired Edith Wharton's writing. Lacking a big familiarity with Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry, this book has steered me into reading her works with gusto. I had only a passing knowledge of Brennan and Perkins Gilman and was blank on Boyce. Edna St. Vincent Millay inspired me most with her artful literary genius.