Ooh. This book. This one got to me and at the same time I rolled my eyes so hard.
The characters in this book absolutely thought that laws do not apply to them. But then they all learned the hard way.
No abortions. No IVF. And adoption is possible to 2-parent households.
So there it is. That's the basics of this book. Then you can guess what happens with the plot - a lovely teacher is single and and 42 and she wants a baby so she goes for IVF. It doesn't work. Then she finds out a student is pregnant. The teacher wants to adopt the baby but just can't find the right words to say when the opportunity arises to ask for the baby.
A woman wants to leave her husband. She tries to have an affair but honestly, she finds the biggest dumb-dumb of a man so that obviously doesn't work.
The local healer gets arrested because a woman claimed that she was pregnant and asked for an abortion. (Turns out the woman was beaten and being abused by her husband).
There's quite a few storylines here. And they're all really sad. I'm not sure I agree with the reviewer who said they love this book with their whole heart (A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, that book is AMAZING and lovely and that book has my heart). I say this because I've read better books about women-hating culture - Vox is another good read where women cannot speak more than 100 words per day. Which, fuck, that would never happen here. I would probably be burned alive on a stake after a week trying to save my daughter from the same fate.
But I digress. I did like this book - but I felt there were lots of story lines and they all intertwined with one another in such a way that this story would only work in a small town, which thankfully is the setting. The author also glosses over the complacency and inattentiveness to the news and media - how people just let things happen to them and say that the new laws won't affect them. It's really interesting how the author pushes her characters forward with life through everything that women and families now CANNOT do.
There's a short blurb on the resistance in this book, I wish there would have been more dedicated to the resistance and underground helpers working to get women abortions (or IVF too). It didn't seem like that was such an important area of the book and I wanted more about that, or to have the main character join it or somehow do SOMETHING. Which I think is also a point the author was trying to make - people let other people make changes and make laws and didn't stand up for what was right and what they believed in. People stood by and let misogynists take over government and let the women-hating go on.
SOOOOO...if you need to get fired up about saving Roe v. Wade, read this. If you need IVF and you think that men don't hate you - read this. In my opinion, the government needs to stay out of the doctor's office when it comes to personal choices like choosing to do IVF or having an abortion. Whatever you want to do...do it...without worry that you're going to be thrown in jail.
I don't feel that I can say "Happy Reading" for this one considering the topic of the book, but I can for sure say that if you're interested in women's fucked up literature, then this is a book for you.
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