When my father handed me the ripped-up, yellowed copy “The Life and Loves of a She-Devil” that he’d picked up for me at a half-price sale at a used-bookstore, my first reaction was, “Isn’t this a movie with Roseanne?”

Yes, “The Life and Loves of a She-Devil” was made into a very poorly done movie starring Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep in 1989. But please, I beg you, if you have seen this movie, please disregard it! Its mediocrity is not at all representative of the book by Fay Weldon, which is, in fact, phenomenal.

“The Life and Loves of a She-Devil” opens upon Ruth, a huge and ugly woman with very little personality and very few wants and needs. Her husband, Bobbo, is having an affair with famous romance novelist Mary Fisher and doesn’t care if Ruth knows. Ruth’s children don’t respect her, her neighbors dislike her, and her in-laws treat her like a servant. But Ruth is used to this and can live with it—until one evening when everything comes apart and Bobbo, on the way out to see Mary, scolds Ruth for causing a fuss over his affair, referring to her as a “she-devil.”

And that’s when the fun begins.

Once Ruth is granted this title, she spends the rest of the book being completely transformed into a She-Devil, single-mindedly scheming and acting for one single purpose: revenge. And this isn’t some little revenge like a murder or a kidnapping. No, Ruth has everything planned out and her quest is absolutely delicious. From start to finish, this book is impossible to put down. The twists and turns are unforeseen and the payoff is completely worth the five hours you’ve spent glued to the couch.

Interestingly, the perspective switches back and forth from first-person (Ruth’s narration) and third. This takes some getting used to, but it soon becomes clear why this is necessary. Every aspect of this book—plot, language, character—is fine-tuned to perfection. There are no mistakes in the world Fay Weldon has created. But this is certainly not a sterile world. There is pain, both sadist and masochistic, and there is love, and there is despair, and, most prominently, there is anger, anger against forced conformation and global ingratitude. Ruth’s revenge is a revenge for all women who have felt used or taken for granted. This is not righteous or, by any stretch of the imagination, right, but it certainly is wickedly fun.