It's easy to see that this is written by the author of The Grass is Singing. Both of Lessing's first two novels have a real focus on the sort of hideous, stifled ennui of the major characters, though Martha's breaking out of hers somewhat.

I think it was better done in Grass, to be honest, although that's possibly because that book is a complete thing in itself - the tension there is stretched to breaking point and break it does. This is only the first of the Martha books, though, and whether or not Lessing planned to write a sequel at the time (I've no idea), there's never really a point in this book where it all comes together. Martha's gotten married, yes, but she's still searching and stifled (both by her community and herself) and if war is looming on the horizon, well, it's been a book of looming, and without the thunderstorm.