A Mind of Her Own

by Paula McLain

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

To be perfectly honest, A Mind of Her Own isn’t very good. I come to this conclusion for a couple of reasons, one personal and one structural. I’ll start with the technical aspects.

A Mind of Her Own is written as a short story, and as such, there’s an extremely limited amount of time to build character and setting. While there is a little introduction, McLain relies heavily on the reader’s previous knowledge of Marie and Pierre to form their characters. While A Mind of Her Own initially explores Marie’s university experience and does so in an intriguing way, it quickly switches gears. The true goal of this story is to share the early months of romance between Marie and Pierre.

In this format, a complex romantic plot is a tricky proposition. As is implied by the title, Marie’s relationship with Pierre was more than just a typical love story – it was a scientific partnership in which Marie had her own intellectual autonomy. A Mind of Her Own is only an hour and fifteen minutes long, and in this time McLain tries to (briefly) introduce Marie and Pierre, build their world around them, and their romance from their first meeting until their marriage. In this capsule of time, it seems like the entire romance is conjecture. In that way, it feels like a little research was done on Curie, but for the most part, this was intended to be a quick romance.

And that is entirely disappointing.

Marie Curie was a fascinating woman whose scientific contributions changed the world. Additionally, she made these contributions at a time when women were not generally respected in the scientific community. The title A Mind of Her Own implies something greater than this story delivers. Curie had so many things stacked against her – the climate towards women, her own social stature for two. Quite possibly the least interesting thing about Marie and her “mind” is her romance. An overly romanticised speech about how she didn’t want to enter a relationship if she had to sacrifice her studies is possibly the cheesiest and less satisfying “struggle” Madame Curie encountered. Color me unimpressed.

If you’re going in for a quick romance story with little to no historical bearing other than using a name and the vaguest of vague essences of a person… then you will likely enjoy A Mind of Her Own. As an historian and disliker of romance fiction, this novel disappointed me.