Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC!

After reading the premise I just had to get my hands on this and I'm glad I did! Usually I'm not the biggest fan of stories surrounding time travelling, but that couldn't be farther from the truth in this case. The story takes place in a matriarchal society of truly misandrist women who all work towards the shared goal of reclaiming women's history that was erased by men.

I do have to appreciate how the author decided on the premise and didn't shrink away from it. The protagonist and other women in the story do despise men and treat them just how women historically have been treated for centuries and they're not apologetic about it. It was very fascinating to read from the perspective of Ava Sky who is so firm in her beliefs while still being a character with nuance. I'm a big fan of the world building; everything felt so vivid and well constructed, I found myself reading descriptions multiple times and there was such a beautiful variety of landscapes and settings!

I guess my only gripes were that at times I'm sure it could have been more subtle, some things were not only implied but basically shouted from rooftops. I'm not too bothered about that though. Secondly, the dialogue could have been polished at least a little more. While I didn't mind too much during high-paced action scenes that were bursting from adrenaline already, at least sometimes I noticed how some scenes felt juvenile because of the dialogue.

3.75 stars. The prose is beyond beautiful and this felt like a fairytale through and through. Patricia McKillip crafts very strong, lush and magical images with her writing. In the Forests of Serre made me want to continue my journey of reading fantasy books from before the 2010s. The atmosphere is unbelievable, I felt transported to a magical land of wonder and whimsy!

My main problem with this was probably that all the major characters read as archetypes and we never really got to know them as three dimensional characters. We always stayed on a surface level, which made me feel distant. The pacing and plot advancement was extremely captivating, a very immersive read, just not as much of a character study as I usually appreciate.

I enjoyed the narrative voice of How to Make a Woman, to me the tone was comparable to Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, with our story taking place in the Basque Country. We follow two best friends, Marie and Solange, and see both of their points of view for parts of the book. Their friendship felt peculiar to me, quite remarkable and reminiscent of Lila and Elena. Our two friends here grow apart more and more, in a way they didn't even feel intuitively like true friends, but nevertheless they always stayed connected in one way or another. We see how both of them became women as they are shaped by society and their environment in different ways.

The writing style is one I don't come across as often, the entire story is told as a rapid sequence of vignettes, and as those come together you get a picture of what's happening. It's not one simple story that flows in a cohesive way. It was challenging and disorienting to read at times but once you get into the flow, it felt lulling and hypnotic.