The Same Woman

by Thea Lim

The Same Woman explores women’s relationships and how they can be affected by our culture, for better or worse. Ruby returns to the scene of a recent heartbreak, only to find the woman her lover left her for around every corner. This woman Ruby has never even spoken to comes to symbolize everything bad that’s ever happened. Soon though, she is faced with the unbearable revelation that she and this woman might be more alike than she can believe.

Genres: Fiction, Canada

120 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2007

About the author

Thea Lim is the author of An Ocean of Minutes, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Thea Lim's writing has been published by Granta, The Paris Review, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Salon, The Southampton Review and others. She holds an MFA from the University of Houston and she previously served as nonfiction editor at Gulf Coast. She grew up in Singapore and lives in Toronto with her family, where she is a professor of creative writing.

Reviews

[Chloe Vice · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intense little story of a woman who struggles with the ideals she thought she had, only to find herself stuck in just a predicament that tests her relationships with men, women, and herself.

[Brianna Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeously written.
I really enjoyed that though this book is focusing on Ruby, we get small slivers into how the people in her life are feeling and perceiving.
Quick read, some of the messages about why women are conditioned to hate each other were a bit too on the nose, but this book was published a little while ago so that's forgivable.
I'm not sure if the book is set in Toronto but it certainly felt like Toronto, and the city exists as a character looming everywhere much like Frankie, which I really enjoyed.

[Tracy Monaghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this because I love “Ocean of Minutes”. Read that instead.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really loved the writting style in this book. It felt so real to life. I did wish for more. Perhaps while I love speculative fiction and sci fi the best because there is more space to make commentary and go to new places.