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inulroIt appears that feminist rage-fuelled fantasy is a theme here at the moment.
This one's good, but nowhere near as good as The Once and Future Witches.
Immanuelle lives in Bethel, a shame-centered polygamous evangelical religious community (you know the drill) in a post apocalyptic (maybe) America. Her family used to have a lot of prestige but have been disgraced by the actions of her mother leading up to the time of her birth and they now live in poverty in a literal and figurative liminal placen at the edge of the village. (I'm all about the liminality so this had me hooked.)
Poverty necessitates selling off livestock, which in turn requires getting to market early, and there is a shortcut through forbidden woods which are supposedly inhabited by witches who were banished there by the first Prophet some centuries back. Immanuelle is sent on this errand, takes the shortcut and events take a predictable (to an extent) turn.
A generation-old curse is unleashed and Immanuelle learns all of Bethel's dirty secrets and fights back with the aid of Ezra, the heir to the current Prophet (of course they have a Prophet, and of course he has All THe Wives).
There's not a lot new here, but it's still pretty good, some genuinely creepy moments and a whole lot of justified feminist rage moments. My caveat is that I read this on planes and trains so wasn't always giving it the attention it deserved. At some times it seems like it's aimed at a YA audience, but I think it also assumes a lot of knowledge about shame-driven cultures that such an audience might not have.
This one's good, but nowhere near as good as The Once and Future Witches.
Immanuelle lives in Bethel, a shame-centered polygamous evangelical religious community (you know the drill) in a post apocalyptic (maybe) America. Her family used to have a lot of prestige but have been disgraced by the actions of her mother leading up to the time of her birth and they now live in poverty in a literal and figurative liminal placen at the edge of the village. (I'm all about the liminality so this had me hooked.)
Poverty necessitates selling off livestock, which in turn requires getting to market early, and there is a shortcut through forbidden woods which are supposedly inhabited by witches who were banished there by the first Prophet some centuries back. Immanuelle is sent on this errand, takes the shortcut and events take a predictable (to an extent) turn.
A generation-old curse is unleashed and Immanuelle learns all of Bethel's dirty secrets and fights back with the aid of Ezra, the heir to the current Prophet (of course they have a Prophet, and of course he has All THe Wives).
There's not a lot new here, but it's still pretty good, some genuinely creepy moments and a whole lot of justified feminist rage moments. My caveat is that I read this on planes and trains so wasn't always giving it the attention it deserved. At some times it seems like it's aimed at a YA audience, but I think it also assumes a lot of knowledge about shame-driven cultures that such an audience might not have.
