Rating: 
Summary: The Ultimate Coming-of-Age Book for Young Women
Review: Perhaps the best line of this novel comes in the final section as author Herman Wouk takes a satiric poke at himself and says of his title character, "You couldn't write a play about her that would run a week, or a novel that would sell a thousand copies. There's no angle." Of course, the angle is that Marjorie Morningstar is every girl who ever dreamed a dream, who aspired to a great career, and wanted to marry the love of her life. As a reader, I was caught up in her life when I first met her at age 17 till the book's closing when 39-year old Marjorie kisses life-long friend Wally goodbye. I was thrilled to be a part of her life at her graduation from Hunter College, at the hysterically funny yet religiously insightful Seder, at the thrilling summer stock camp known as Southwind, and at every step of her tumultuous love affair with Noel Airman. From the heights of Central Park West to the seedy walk-up apartment in Paris, the reader is swept into Marjorie's life as she chases her dream to become not only a Broadway star but also Noel's wife. Wouk has surrounded her with a remarkably well-drawn cast of supporting characters including her unforgettable Uncle Samson-Aaron, her sometimes friend Marsha, her loving but bewildered parents, and Mike Eden, the friend who forces her to look at her Jewish heritage. Beginning in Central Park West in the 30's and ending in the post-war 50's, "Marjorie Morningstar" is a classic coming-of-age book filled with backstage drama, family clashes, and a love affair you will never forget. You will be thoroughly engrossed in Marjorie's search for identity and her realization that the thing we often try hardest to avoid is that which we truly want most of all.
Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate Coming-of-Age Book for Young Women
Review: Perhaps the best line of this novel comes in the final section as author Herman Wouk takes a satiric poke at himself and says of his title character, "You couldn't write a play about her that would run a week, or a novel that would sell a thousand copies. There's no angle." Of course, the angle is that Marjorie Morningstar is every girl who ever dreamed a dream, who aspired to a great career, and wanted to marry the love of her life. As a reader, I was caught up in her life when I first met her at age 17 till the book's closing when 39-year old Marjorie kisses life-long friend Wally goodbye. I was thrilled to be a part of her life at her graduation from Hunter College, at the hysterically funny yet religiously insightful Seder, at the thrilling summer stock camp known as Southwind, and at every step of her tumultuous love affair with Noel Airman. From the heights of Central Park West to the seedy walk-up apartment in Paris, the reader is swept into Marjorie's life as she chases her dream to become not only a Broadway star but also Noel's wife. Wouk has surrounded her with a remarkably well-drawn cast of supporting characters including her unforgettable Uncle Samson-Aaron, her sometimes friend Marsha, her loving but bewildered parents, and Mike Eden, the friend who forces her to look at her Jewish heritage. Beginning in Central Park West in the 30's and ending in the post-war 50's, "Marjorie Morningstar" is a classic coming-of-age book filled with backstage drama, family clashes, and a love affair you will never forget. You will be thoroughly engrossed in Marjorie's search for identity and her realization that the thing we often try hardest to avoid is that which we truly want most of all.
Rating:
Summary: A Review of Marjorie Morningstar
Review: Recently,my aunt gave a first edition copy of Marjorie Morningstar, that my father had given her as a birthday present when she and he were younger. When she told me the brief idea, the story of a young Jewish girl struggling to become a star, I thought, how boring. However, I devoured the book. It is a very long book, but I finished it in three nights. It was a real page turner. I have read Gone With the Wind, and while that novel focuses on a belle struggling to win a rogue's heart in the South at the time of the Civil War, it is much similar to Marjorie Morningstar. The latter book takes place on the West Side of Central Park, with a cast of characters who are salt of the earth, hardworking, and predominately Jewish. The rumbles of WWII are starting, and Marjorie Morgenstern, finds herself a beautiful young lady who is eyed as quite a catch from "pimply" boys. She has never known true, equal, love until she meets a certain play write, songwriter, "masked marvel", that she seduces, in his words. In her words, she is seduced.The beginning and the end of the book are all mildy suprising, and the middle is a testament to people who know true, passionate love. The end, at least to me, was an unpleasant suprise.While Marjorie finds more and more about the world beyond her kosher apartment building, she also finds out more about herself, those she loves, and those she will love. Though written by a man, the book truely manages to magnify what life must of been like for a twenty-something female Jew who wants more than she is expected to get in the late thirties. Noel Airman is a modern Rhett Butler, who feels love like he has never felt before, and Marjorie is not quite a modern Scarlett O'Hara, but an enigma of all the romantic heroines out there: Elizabeth Bennet, the afore mentioned Scarlett, a Lady Macbeth, Juliet, and more. You will want to strangle Marsha, "neck" with Noel, consequently strangle Noel, slap Marjorie,love her family, hug Marsha, marry Noel, identify with Marjorie, slap Marjorie, and want to be with Noel,and want to be best friends with Wally. A must read for anyone who liked Gone With the Wind; or any other romance novel that deals with devestating choices, affairs, the opening of innocent eyes, true love, and the pain that one can only know from capturing, and loosing, your first, passionate, true love.
Rating:
Summary: Such a good book . . .
Review: Several people have tryed to get me to read this book over the years. I however, don't like classic books, nor coming-of-age novels. Instead I quick-paced mysterys and romances. However, when I finally gave in and started to read the book, I feel in love. This is the first book ever that I am truely taking my time with, I don't want it to end. I am sixteen years old and truely understanding everything the novel talks about. Not only is the plot incredible and always moving, but the character development is fantastic. The author is a genius for his writing. I am not yet done with the book but already I am fully ingrosed and never bored. I am reccommending it to everyone. The characters and plot may have been written in the fiftys, but the novel can stand in any time period. The main character's thoughts are incredibly real and well written. I know I have rambled on and on now about this book but it really was incredible and I would reccommend it to anyone. Even those who are like me and are not big fans of the classics that are forced down your throught by english teachers.
Rating:
Summary: AMAZING
Review: Simply the novel I compare all novels with. (Not one has ever come close) I don't usually write any reviews, but I figured this time I should. The story of Marjorie Morningstar is extraordinary. I cried and laughed. I fell in love with every character in this coming of age story. This is the only novel, in which I have read more than twice. This is a must read
Rating:
Summary: AMAZING
Review: Simply the novel I compare all novels with. (Not one has ever come close) I don't usually write any reviews, but I figured this time I should. The story of Marjorie Morningstar is extraordinary. I cried and laughed. I fell in love with every character in this coming of age story. This is the only novel, in which I have read more than twice. This is a must read
Rating: 
Summary: A Bittersweet Period Piece
Review: There's no denying Herman Wouk is a wonderful writer; Marjorie Morningstar is compelling from beginning to end. Marjorie is a girl trying to come to terms with the pressures of her traditional parents and her own non-traditional desires. Many of the characters here are unforgettable. Yet the message of the book--that Marjorie is misguided for wanting more than a middle class life of marriage and children--is a disturbing one from a more modern perspective. And I write this not simply because her having an affair outside of marriage is treated as high tragedy. The author clearly thinks Marjorie, because she is female, is not entitled to the same career aspirations as the men in the story. Even the character of Wally, who loves her, patronizes her, treating her dreams as silly girl notions. Why are his dreams, and Noel's, any more noble than hers? We are told that Marjorie doesn't have true talent...but do the men in the story, either?
Marjorie Morningstar is a wonderful soap opera. I hope that girls reading it today will understand that is a snapshot in time and the constrictions on Marjorie are, happily, part of our past.
Rating: 
Summary: Delightful Period Piece
Review: This book is a real women's novel -- a Sex in the City for upper middle class Jewish 1930's New York. It's hard to believe a man wrote it! This book is at least twice the length of even long popular novels published these days -- and twice as enjoyable. Each chapter is a balanced, self-contained episode -- I'd guess that it was originally written for magazine serialization. The characters here are very true to life. It's nice to read about a heroine who is pretty, popular, not wanting for money, etc. in an era of "poor me" novels starring dysfuncitonal people in even more dysfunctional families. Nor is she too arch or clever clever to identify with. It's an absolute pleasure to share ages of 17-24 with Marjorie. Everything that happens in the novel is belieavable. Unlike the other reviewer, I don't think Wouk is a misongynist. Marjorie is very likeable, but she's basically a rather pampered middle class girl, who barely worked a day in her life. Of course she didn't have the wherewithall to be a successful actress, or the passion to throw herself into something else -- like altruistic, full time war work. She achieved what was really her goal all along -- getting married and creating a strong family unit, like the one she grew up in. We see her at the end through the eyes of a former spurned suitor -- but he's just judging her from the standpoint of his youthful fantasies. Unfortunately, it's the 1950s by now -- not a great time for women. Any young woman reading this book can thank her lucky stars she was born later than Marjorie! I like to imagine her youngest daughter getting swept up into the hippie movement, and her grandaughter as a doctor or lawyer ... I love the character of Noel Airman, Marjorie's Mr. Big -- who she tries to break off with several times, but who will neither let her alone, nor fully committ. He and many other male characters in the book are given to long soliliqueys about society, men and women, being Jewish, etc. I only wish Marjorie were given similar latitude -- we are always given to assume that her ideas are simply the conventional ones of the time -- I'd prefer to be a virgin when I marry, I'm Jewish and only associate with other Jewish people, yet I don't want to seem too Jewish ... The fact that Marjorie doesn't have the imagination and breadth of interests as the men in the book is the only thing that makes it fall short of a 5 star all time classic. But Wouk was writing about who he was writing about, and in that sense he is writing very true.
Rating:
Summary: Best of Wouks Books
Review: This book was brilliant and I couln't put it down. It grabbed me and almost put me into the book, Wouk really did a great job of making me want to read more. The Characters were well described and written perfectly into the folds of the household and life of Marjorie. It was fantastic.
Rating:
Summary: A big, old-fashioned page turner
Review: This Herman Wouk classic remains new and fresh even on re-reading many years later. It's the story of an exceptionally pretty and confident young Jewish woman during the 30's, solidly middle class, but burdened with just enough imagination to dream of something more than a nice young doctor and a house in the suburbs. The portrayal of the sexual mores of that time is wonderful--young women date madly, rarely form any kind of connection with the men in their lives, and spend a great deal of energy avoiding the fate worse than death--losing one's virginity before marriage. Marjorie's rebellion is relatively brief but intense--she falls in love with the mercurial Noel Airman who has himself rejected his own borgeoise background, pursues an acting career vigorously but unsuccessfully, and even does the forbidden--has sex before marriage.
We're rooting for Marjorie to truly break out and be different, but it doesn't happen. After realizing that Noel isn't the one after all, she meets her man and marries, and adopts the conventional life, but not without paying a price for her youthful flings. Noel too pays a price, of a different sort--the genius is finally unmasked, and ends up in as conventional a situation as Marjorie.
From the perspective of a 21st century professional woman who came of age in the 70's, it's hard to believe how much has changed in just a few decades. Was it really like this? was the double standard really so iron clad?
Wouk was a great writer--this is not serious literature but it's several cuts above the mass market stuff churned out today. Wouk was also extremely versatile--who can forget "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance." My book club occasionally goes back to read some of these oldies but goodies and we're never disappointed--try it sometime!
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