#37 in Horror
The Stepford Wives
- 159
- Pages
- about 3 h
- Reading time
- Film 2004 +4
- On screen
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Our view
“The Stepford Wives” is a short, sharp satire whose horror comes from how ordinary and polite everything looks. In 159 pages Levin shows Joanna Eberhart’s suspicions being waved away and gives her a convincing inner life; the ending can still catch readers who think they know the story. Some readers find most of it slow, with the tension arriving only in the final pages, and its message blunt.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Stepford Wives is a 1972 satirical "feminist horror" novel by Ira Levin. The story concerns Joanna Eberhart, a talented photographer, wife, and young mother who suspects that something in the town of Stepford is changing the wives from free-thinking, intelligent women into compliant wives dedicated solely to homemaking. As her friends slowly transform, Joanna realizes the horrific truth.
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen 5 times — from 1975 to 2012.
- FilmThe Stepford WivesIMDb
- FilmThe Stepford WivesIMDb
- TV filmThe Stepford ChildrenIMDb
- TV filmRevenge of the Stepford WivesIMDb
- TV filmSechzehneichenIMDb
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.8 across 210 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 59% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Horror average of 7.5. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.4 | 31 | 15% |
| Hardcover | 7.9 | 179 | 85% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Stepford Wives?
It has 159 pages — shorter than 98% of the ranked books in Horror.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Horror — with scores between 7.5 and 8.0, closest to this book.
