My Selling Pitch:
Dystopian horror except it’s actually just gynecological science vs fundamentalist cults so a fuckin’ Tuesday in today’s political hellscape.

Pre-reading: Pink horror covers are gonna do it for me every time. Who hates needles and loves books that make her squirm? This gal.

(obviously potential spoilers from here on) Thick of it: Ha. Love the technically blonde vs midwestern blonde.

And you’ve been drugged now, girlie.

I feel like liberal women are appropriately panicked because we see this on the horizon for ourselves. I don’t think it’s overreacting. I think everyone else is incredibly underreacting.

Them: Satan says come or else (threatening) Samantha, a brat to her core: do you promise?

So if they’re raising laying hens, why are they eating shelf-stable eggs? Also, winter is not calving season. You don’t want calves born out in the snow. You aim for spring and then some of them just come early.

I don’t know if I can read this book. It’s upsetting me a lot. Not at its quality just like things are so shit for women. Very The Natural Way of Things and Annie Bot.

I mean, ironically, this is kind of like that Female Fantasy terrible romcom I read because she is using fantasy romance to make it through. She just like us for real.

Not a fucking Harry Potter reference.

Oh girl, beat his illiterate ass.

Again, I don’t know if I can read this because of the visceral rage it triggers in me.

If you can read this without rage screaming, I applaud you.

Like how do you read this and not weep because it’s real!

A me!

Hell yeah, your baby did not consent to choking. We are not normalizing this number one predictor of fatal domestic abuse.

You know that schizophrenic symptom where people become convinced the media is talking to them? Stop putting my name in the fucked up femme horror books. Like I know it’s just a coincidence and I have an incredibly common name, but girlllll.

Romance books treated like illicit drugs makes me wanna sob. Like wake up. Reading is political. They are moving against literacy right now.

Girl, how do you not text 911? Be for real. Copy-paste that bitch over.

This is a 3.5. It’s too rushed, but what's there is good.

Post-reading: I think this is a strong three. Here’s the thing, the premise is so good, and the most important thing to take away from this dystopian horror book is that this isn’t a dystopian. This is happening in America right now. This is happening all over the world right now. People’s stupid religions are getting women killed because they refuse to believe in science, and that should horrify you. I don’t understand the critiques of this book complaining that it’s not horrific enough. I think if you read this without understanding the depths of the horror of this situation, you’re only processing the surface-level trauma. Maybe if you haven’t been denied something just because god said so, you just can’t fathom it, but that shit lingers. It’s so embedded in the language you use. I’m so far removed and so anti-religion now, and I still say oh lord and oh god constantly. I still panic I’ve immaculately conceived the second my period is late. Gaslighting framed as morality is so sticky.

But as much as I like this book’s concept, it’s way too short for what it wants to accomplish. It picked excellent themes. I loved the reading as resistance angle. Fantasy romance as the gateway drug to feminism is gonna resonate with a lot of readers. The ending is way too rushed and unbelievable, and we’ll come back to that in a bit, but I have a funny feeling that it was maybe written as a tribute to the author’s own father. I like the parallelism of her dad fought a war, and now she’s also a soldier in the war on women’s bodies.

We don’t get enough of a deep dive into character backstories, so all the cult members end up feeling pretty flat, but we also didn’t really have the page count to do that. I think the opener, her legal battle, actually ends up distracting from this plot a bit. I understand that it works as a device to isolate her because if she were a successful doctor, she would be reported missing, but it muddies the messaging a bit. The legal battle is upholding the patriarchy and capitalism using religious tenets as an excuse. The cult is still going against the government’s rules, and then her rescue doesn’t come from a government agency. Do you see what I’m getting at? We’re not really critiquing the government or capitalism in this book, but it’s such a driving opposite force to so much of this book’s plot that it feels neglectful to not address it.

The cult itself is more of a stereotype, than a realized threat. We don’t take the time to learn their beliefs, and we don’t have to to get the book’s message across. It’s very insert whatever fundamentalist religious group you like, they’re all bad. But that’s not a book exploring a conflict in good faith. It has no empathy for the cult members. The book can’t conceive of a world where women are there voluntarily and men aren’t upholding it for their own sexual gain. And I think having come off of a bunch of books with similar plots because cults are wicked trendy right now, it’s further highlighted for me. Girl Dinner and Make Me Better are phenomenal examples to contrast books like Yesteryear and Trad Wife. The former genuinely empathize with the people seduced into these high-control groups. Their narratives put you in the position to be seduced alongside the characters. They show you how someone could become convinced that something incredibly toxic for them would actually help them. And this book and the latter two don’t do that. They’ll tell you. They’ll tell you that a character understands that what they’re doing is bad but that they think the ends justify the means. Unfortunately, this always comes off as disingenuous. People largely don’t think they’re being the villain. It’s like the authors can’t cope with the cognitive dissonance and end up telling on themselves. It’s a biased take. We come in with a feminist slant and framing regardless of whether that fits the character’s own beliefs. And it’s not book ruining, but it will keep a book from a five star. We needed more about the cult’s language editing. We get a glimpse of it with the yoga positioning and the chronic chaperoning, but we don’t get a good example of the self policing that cults rely on. We never see the main character break. There’s no bargaining, there’s no shift, there’s just quiet endurance. And while that works for a little bit, I think it’s important to illustrate the manipulative tactics that cults use that increase susceptibility. The main character sees no benefit to being in this environment, but the people living there have to or the believability falls apart. And it’s frustrating because this book seemed like it was on the cusp of getting there, of taking that final step the whole time. But without going far enough… the stakes end up feeling like a scary detour rather than genuine peril.

I still like the book. I still think it’s worth the read. I just wish it was more. I want this book done with a mashup of Blake and Gailey and Felker-Martin’s style. I want that biting humor, and debauched sex appeal, and abject horror that those writers are capable of providing. This read more like a debut, and it’s not. I would pick the author up again if I like the concept of her next book, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to read her again.

Who should read this: Feminists Religious commentary fans Cult horror fans

Ideal reading time: Winter

Do I want to reread this: I wouldn’t read this book again because I’ll remember it, but I would like to read a different version of this book again.

Would I buy this: Yes

Similar books:

• Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey-pregnancy horror, thriller, family drama, queer, cults, religious commentary
• The Unworthy by Augustina Bazterrica-dystopian pregnancy horror, queer, cults, religious commentary
• The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood-dystopian horror, thriller, queer, social commentary
• Deliver Me by Elle Nash-dystopian pregnancy horror, family drama, unreliable narrator, thriller, queer, cults, religious commentary
• Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin-dystopian horror, queer, trans, cults, social commentary
• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke-domestic thriller, unreliable narrator, family drama, cults, cults, social commentary
• Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaefer-domestic thriller, pregnancy horror, religious commentary
• Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison-revenge thriller, horror, family drama, cults, religious commentary
• Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill-dystopian pregnancy horror, queer, cults, social commentary
• You Weren’t Meant to be Human by Andrew Joseph White-dystopian pregnancy horror, queer, trans, autism, cults, social commentary
• Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake-dark academia, horror, revenge thriller, family drama, queer, cults, social commentary