Review of Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

*Warning Contains some spoilers* 

Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates, is a story of love. A story of love lost, unrequited love, and love rekindled. It is the 1950s and April and Frank Wheeler have been married for years, and live on Revolutionary Road with their two young children. Frank works in the city at a boring office job, while April stays home, cleans the house, and cares for their children. On the outside they seem like the perfect model family, but underneath it all Frank and April are in a constant battle against each other. April has become indifferent with Frank, continually giving him the cold shoulder, arguing, and spending night after night sleeping on the couch. Frank has his own matters. He feeds into April’s arguments, and yet on the inside, he just wants to get along with her. Frank also begins an affair with a secretary from his office. April doesn’t exactly remain true to Frank either. Even with their constant feuding and fighting April comes up with the plan that they should move to Europe. She hopes that she would be able to work a day job and that Frank could stay home to be able to do the things he never had the time to do before. Just when they are preparing to leave, something happens that could change the course of their marriage and their lives, but will they have the strength to fight through it together? 

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was painful at some parts to see the way Frank and April could betray each other so guiltlessly. I also thought it was very interesting the way the author tackled some very controversial topics like affairs, marriage issues, and abortion. Even more interesting that he wrote this book in the 1960’s about the 1950’s. Overall I loved the characters in the book, the story itself, and finally the ending that I did not expect. 

I would give this book an 9 out of 10. I really enjoyed it, but there were a few slow parts that made it hard to continue sometimes. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys love stories because this one does not have the typical happy romantic ending to it. It is not so much a love story, but a story about love and about life; about how two people in love can fall out of love just as easily as they fell into it.