Just as evocative as it is original, The Awakening isn’t your everyday Victorian Romance. Chopin beautifully crafts the story of protagonist Edna Pontellier, a woman living in the American South during the post Civil War period, as she struggles to come to terms with her changing and sometimes conflicting views on motherhood, femininity and sexuality. When she finds herself unhappy and restricted in her marriage, Edna makes a series of decisions that eventually lead to her pursuit of freedom, and with it, her sexual awakening. The raw emotion, complex narrative and subtle social commentary make this novel it the ultimate precursor for modernist literature — and one hell of a good read.