An interesting view of a period of French intellectual life immediately following World War 2, but before revolution broke out in Algeria and later rebellion in the streets of France.

In general, I had little sympathy for the main characters in the novel as their major preoccupations of whether or not to write, how to organize a non-Communist Party left, and being in and out of love - when not drinking copious amounts of wine and taking nice trips to the countryside - failed to really resonate with me. However, if one can get over their bourgeois affectations, it's possible to see the legitimacy of those concerns, and the way they were presented - well-written, existential (obviously) - did allow me to really enjoy the book. One final note, I did find the women characters in the book to be troubling submissive at times and to have less depth than the male characters. Surprising given it's de Beauvoir and the main woman character is based on herself.