This book hates women.

The longer I think about it, the more I come back to that. We meet a lot of different female characters (mostly cis hetero read/coded female and if non-hetero is hinted on its always framed in a problematic way; at least that's my impression).

And the main interactions Natalie has in the book are with other women. She only sometimes interacts with Caleb and then her father in law (as far as I remember). Even her sons are more or less absent or just there on the margins.

In contrast, we meet a lot of different other women, through dialogue, through Natalie's musings, through interactions Natalie has. And even though we only get Natalie's perspective... And she is an unreliable narrator and her perspective is highly clouded...The representation of those other characters is really one sided, undercomplex and like. They are one note characters only existing to showcase one thing. I really struggle to find at least some little things that the reader could decode while Natalie wouldn't see a certain act or something said or a reaction the same way. But as readers ... one could perhaps still see things shining through...

I am still sitting on this read because a lot irked me the wrong way. 🫠🙈 But I suspect the underlining message is just. This book hates women. Not just America. It's like something brewed in the depths of the mansophere and I doubt this was the intention here. Like yes the mansophere is part of this but every representation just drives home the core messages of the mansophere. 🫣