Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Women Could Fly

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The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings

10 reviews

faliiza's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Unbelievably brutal yet beautiful story. Such a dark and unforgiving world. Mesmerising prose. Main character who contains multitudes. A wholly unique and dark twist on a modern world with witches.

This book had the feminist in me raging. I was shaking in anger at points, so close to throwing the book. But it was not only the women who are wronged in this world, white supremacy is wild at large and black people are paying the price. And add to that poor parenting and generally sucky people. There are so many things wrong here, a real dystopian cornucopia of awfulness.

But. There’s also light. Beaty and wonder. MAGIC. Love. Friendship. True reflection and revelation of oneself. Power and imagination.

I truly love this book. It seeped into my soul.

Here’s a bunch of quotes from the book. Most of them made me angry, some sad. All stuck with me.

”In the class textbook was a chapter titled "The Protectors." It was all about how women needed men to guide them and help them stay on the path of light. Marriage is, yes, for love, but also a way to keep us all safe.”

"The only safe place for a woman is 100 percent alone."

"When the great creator made women, he made the glue that holds this world together. Women give birth, they care for their children, their husbands, their parents when they age. They create beautiful homes, beautiful meals, and see the world with gentleness and care.

"Women were made smaller and gentler and kinder and obedient because without those qualities the whole world would crumble. Isn't it miraculous? To be made something so wonderful, to always know your path and to never be lost."

“In every room of that house, I told myself, If you keep acting normal, you can have a life.”

“In every room I told myself I had so many things other people were desperate for, so shut up and lean in to being happy.”

“How long has it been since someone spoke your name with tenderness and not irritation or boredom or anger or threats?”

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ajay913's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

rcsreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

superiour_medium's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

An incredible bite size book in the style of Atwood but far surpassing her works. Giddings’ has demonstrated ability to put her in the ranks of N.K. Jemison & her contemporaries in the realms of urban fantasy/magical realism

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kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

this was incredibly bleak, as i expected from the author who wrote Lakewood! the bleakness was a refreshing, interesting kind though: what new, horrifyingly realistic form of oppression & reckoning can Giddings come up with next? that sounds bad but honestly it was incredibly cool to me how magic felt so real and lived while seated next to true life misogynoir. magic pulses through this book, but it didn’t escape or detract from the main theme of how any uniqueness, any difference, any potential power that women, specifically Black ones, even more specifically queer Black ones have is viewed as dangerous and in need of regulation for other peoples “safety” or wellbeing.

There were so many interesting layers to this story, and Jo’s relationship with Tiana made my heart ache and my eyes well in a very specific Black mom to Black daughter way. Mother daughter relationships are my Achilles heel (see: me crying my way through EEAAO and Turning Red), so seeing one in my shade was a bit of an arrow to the chest in the best way.

All that being said, this book ends, not quite hopefully, but upliftingly; everything isn’t sunshine and roses, but there is promise of a better future as created by community. nothing materially changes, but the feeling it gives is a positive one. I really liked this book, and will be buying it in print for my shelf :)

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bek_p87's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

This was a very unique story, set in a United States eerily and disturbingly similar to today's, but with (if you can believe it) fewer rights for women, LGBTQIA, and BIPOC. In this world, witchcraft still exists, and to "protect" women from being "seduced" to the "dark side" and becoming witches, they must marry by age 30.

Our heroine, Josephine, is approaching 28 and finally coming to terms with her mother's disappearance half her life ago, when she suddenly gets the chance to feel close to her again as she seeks to honour a strange request in her mother's will. This sets her on a life-altering path.

I quite enjoyed this book, although the prose was a little difficult to engage with at times, and the ending was undefined.

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hazelrosen's review

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Content Warnings

antimony's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

fourteen years ago, josephine’s mother disappeared. she inspired her own episode of unsolved mysteries, caused untold grief for her family, and was suspected time and time again as being a witch. in this world, women are closely monitored, because any behavior that’s even a bit strange could be a sign of witchcraft. but there is one last opportunity for jo to connect to her mother, through a strange clause in her will, and jo sets her regular life aside to follow it.

i did a horrible job describing this book im so sorry. i really liked the beginning and i really liked the end. the world was cool as well. but the middle dragged SOOO much. maybe it’s just because i read this as an ebook and maybe i feel negatively towards it because it took me a while to read. if i’d read it faster, in a physical copy, it probably would be 4 stars. c’est la vie. i do think it has good things to say but the middle part dragged so much and i didn’t care at all for that middle 50%. sad!

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editoryalizing's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

starrysteph's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

The Women Could Fly is un unsettling novel set in a dystopian world where magic is real - so naturally, it’s treated as fearsome & unholy and used to oppress & control women, especially queer women of color.

We follow Jo, an almost-28-year-old woman who is questioning her place in the world and her ability to live freely. Her age is pretty crucial; women are mandated to marry by the time they are 30 or submit to constant monitoring by the Bureau of Witchcraft. But how can you fall in love with this pressure of freedom? How can you be sure that your relationship is real? How is it possible to care for someone who ultimately has full power over you - and not let that care turn into toxicity or resentment?

Jo doesn’t want to give up her life, but the odds are stacked against her: her mother is absent, she’s bisexual, she’s Black, and she expresses her opinions (with wit!).

Jo’s mother disappeared fourteen years ago. She’s struggling with the grief of that loss, an uncomfortably distanced relationship with her (white) father, and anger with her mother both for leaving her alone and for subjecting her to the whims of the government. When women - especially women of color - disappear, that’s flagged as possible witchcraft. And after her mother’s disappearance, Jo (as a young Black woman) is now constantly treated with suspicion due to her proximity to a “likely witch”.

But now, Jo is agonizingly ready to move forward. When she decides to declare her mother as legally dead, she uncovers a will with a promising amount of money – she just has to take an unusual trip with some even more unusual stipulations in order to claim her inheritance.

In this world, any sort of female autonomy is an act of defiance. Jo is seeking agency that the world believes is inherently dangerous (and that she simply doesn’t deserve). The oppressors in this book speak with rage-inducing racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. rhetoric that will unfortunately feel deeply familiar. It’s the same nonsense that those in power always utilize to stay in control. So while the speculative elements of the story are heightened and imaginative, it feels VERY real. (An interesting aspect of the novel is that Jo’s mother believes that witches aren’t real; that magic is simply a useful tool to oppress anyone who threatens the current way of life.)

The story is slow-paced, and Giddings’ worldbuilding feels a bit purposefully vague. You’ll read a lot of contradictions (maybe intentional and maybe not); it “makes sense” because it is inherently nonsensical, but don’t expect to have a clear picture of this culture. The sequence of events is also very choppy at times. The Women Could Fly interrogates a lot of topics, and encourages you - the reader - to engage thoughtfully with the questions it poses.

Let me be very clear - this book may not be for you. I adored Giddings’ first book, Lakewood, and if you did as well you’ll have a better idea of what to expect here. The content is incredibly rich, but it is slow and confusing. If you’re someone who enjoys reading in book clubs or discussing media with others (especially involving social commentary) this would be a perfect choice.

People fear what they don’t understand. They are especially afraid when something new may threaten their power; they have a desperate need for control. The Women Could Fly explores this conflict in a new & interesting way.

Ultimately, I found this book captivating & challenging & upsettingly prescient.

CW: racism, misogyny, sexism, homophobia/biphobia, abandonment, forced institutionalization, grief, suicidal thoughts, police brutality, death of a parent, vomit, animal blood/gore, animal death

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