Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
Upon further reflection I am bumping this down a star even more, the language this author used just did not work for me whatsoever, though she certainly did envision a VERY realistic reality if abortions are deemed illegal here again, I could absolutely see this world playing out exactly as written. But I wish I could have connected with the characters.
My sentiments cannot be summed up more perfectly than the one found on the jacket, “Strange and lovely and luminous. I loved RED CLOCKS with my whole heart.” ❤️
3,5 ster - ik vond sommige aspecten heel interessant, zoals het walvissen / biografie gedeelte, maar over het algemeen bleven het verhaal en de personages vrij vlak?
Like Naomi Alderman’s The Power, only with more mentions of vaginas.
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Abortion
My thoughts on this book contradict with my feelings and I've no idea how they all balance out. I loved the very different women, learning about their situations and struggles, and living in their wooded environment. I read straight through this book, which never happens and therefore feels consequential. I usually hate reading novels that have some sort of agenda, (in this case women's rights,) but this time around I almost wished there was even more discussion on the issue at hand. Admittedly, it's an issue that is important to me.
Battling against these feelings are the irritation that the female characters are called by their roles ("The Biographer") and the men are called their names - an irritation you are probably supposed to feel but is grating nonetheless as it makes it difficult to relate closely to them. Some details felt like loose ends (the whales, the biography bits) while others seemed too tidy (the daughter/mender, the "pink curtain") and still others just seemed implausible (the lack of protest/activism).
While this was a good reading experience overall, leaving me thinking (which I like) yet entertained, I don't know how quick I'd be to recommend it. I guess it balances out at about 3.5 stars - above average but not completely satisfying.
Battling against these feelings are the irritation that the female characters are called by their roles ("The Biographer") and the men are called their names - an irritation you are probably supposed to feel but is grating nonetheless as it makes it difficult to relate closely to them. Some details felt like loose ends (the whales, the biography bits) while others seemed too tidy (the daughter/mender, the "pink curtain") and still others just seemed implausible (the lack of protest/activism).
While this was a good reading experience overall, leaving me thinking (which I like) yet entertained, I don't know how quick I'd be to recommend it. I guess it balances out at about 3.5 stars - above average but not completely satisfying.
Reading this after the reversal of Roe v. Wade was interesting to say the least. Horrifying too. I quite like the writing style, although it was slightly confusing at the beginning switching between characters’ POV. Stunning read if you want a glimpse into the post-Roe era (although I’m sure the awful news reports would suffice…).
Clocks are vaginas.
I personally thought that was pretty interesting, liguistically, but thought I should give fair warning to anyone who's wondering "what are red clocks?" Answer: they're vaginas. Or maybe "wombs" is more accurate.
In this refreshingly female-focused speculative fiction universe, the Personhood Amendment has been added to the Constitution, outlawing abortion and IVF. A new Every Child Needs Two law is on the horizon, which would prohibit singles from adopting.
The book stays in third person perspective, but rotates its lens among several women, focusing on one at a time. The Biographer is a single high-school teacher who desperately wants to get pregnant, and is also writing a biography of a (fictional, I think) female Icelandic polar explorer. (The snippets of this biography, with its meditations on pack ice and proto-feminism, are probably my favorite parts of the book.) The Mender is a traditional herbalist who lives in the woods. The Wife is exactly that, a bored housewife wondering what else she could be doing with her life. Her daughter is The Daughter, a high-school student whose close friend was one of the first women to violate the Personhood Amendment.
There are men in the narrative: the principal of the school where the biographer teaches and the daughter attends, and where the wife's husband also teaches; the mender has a special friend who comes by regularly; and the daughter has a mad crush on a boy her age. But with the exception of the mender's special friend, these men are all jackasses who barely seem to recognize that the women in their lives have needs, have desires, have agency... that they are persons, fully developed. That (not entirely unexpectedly) throws the backdrop of the Personhood Amendment into sharp and purposeful relief.
This is not a subtle narrative, but it is nonetheless a believable one. The people content to live in a world where individual women's needs and desires are subjugated to political/male commandments are, it turns out, pretty familiar. And that's the most shocking thing about Red Clocks: it shows us a potential future that, when you get right down to it, isn't shocking at all.
Please note: I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from the publishers, but I also purchased my own hard copies from both Powell's (slipcased) and BOTM because it resonated so strongly.
I personally thought that was pretty interesting, liguistically, but thought I should give fair warning to anyone who's wondering "what are red clocks?" Answer: they're vaginas. Or maybe "wombs" is more accurate.
In this refreshingly female-focused speculative fiction universe, the Personhood Amendment has been added to the Constitution, outlawing abortion and IVF. A new Every Child Needs Two law is on the horizon, which would prohibit singles from adopting.
The book stays in third person perspective, but rotates its lens among several women, focusing on one at a time. The Biographer is a single high-school teacher who desperately wants to get pregnant, and is also writing a biography of a (fictional, I think) female Icelandic polar explorer. (The snippets of this biography, with its meditations on pack ice and proto-feminism, are probably my favorite parts of the book.) The Mender is a traditional herbalist who lives in the woods. The Wife is exactly that, a bored housewife wondering what else she could be doing with her life. Her daughter is The Daughter, a high-school student whose close friend was one of the first women to violate the Personhood Amendment.
There are men in the narrative: the principal of the school where the biographer teaches and the daughter attends, and where the wife's husband also teaches; the mender has a special friend who comes by regularly; and the daughter has a mad crush on a boy her age. But with the exception of the mender's special friend, these men are all jackasses who barely seem to recognize that the women in their lives have needs, have desires, have agency... that they are persons, fully developed. That (not entirely unexpectedly) throws the backdrop of the Personhood Amendment into sharp and purposeful relief.
This is not a subtle narrative, but it is nonetheless a believable one. The people content to live in a world where individual women's needs and desires are subjugated to political/male commandments are, it turns out, pretty familiar. And that's the most shocking thing about Red Clocks: it shows us a potential future that, when you get right down to it, isn't shocking at all.
Please note: I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from the publishers, but I also purchased my own hard copies from both Powell's (slipcased) and BOTM because it resonated so strongly.
I thought this book was AMAZING. One of my new all-time favorites, and I'm sure I'll be revisiting *Red Clocks.*
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I liked the concept of this story and it has more plot than a lot of literary fiction. The connections between characters were reasonable but I found their voices to be stilted in a similar way, perhaps intentionally since they represent different female archetypes. I listened to the audiobook so it sounds like I missed out on some structural/formatting elements.