Reviews - The Women Could Fly

1.36k reviews for:

The Women Could Fly

Megan Giddings

3.73 AVERAGE

pdestrienne's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

really landed the ending

the_spicy_carrot's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging inspiring fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

wordsofclover's review against another edition

3.0

mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

In a world where any woman can be suspected of being a witch, and must be married by the age of thirty, Josephine is starting to worry even more about her future as a 28-year-old black, bisexual woman. Her mother disappeared when she was a teenager, suspected of witchcraft and this has hung over Josephine as she grew into her own womanhood.

This book definitely has a bit of The Handmaid's Tale feel as we are in a world very similar to our own but an extremely patriarchal society where it seems women don't have a huge amount of free will and are expected to choose a life where a man controls most of what they do.

I liked some of what this book explored in terms of a heteronormative society, patriarchy, motherhood and womanhood and then Josephine's experience as a bisexual and biracial woman.

I think this book just didn't give me a huge amount of strong feelings and I thought that the way magic was explored in this book was at times a bit vague. The book was a bit depressing in terms of the continuation of a very patriarchal society and I don't feel there was much of an uprising or showdown in a way I would have liked but I also understand why the author/character made certain decisions.

I think I just wanted more from this book and didn't get it but it might be more of a me problem.

Content Warnings

lisbethwhite's review against another edition

3.75

challenging emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

juliannasieg's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous funny mysterious reflective 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: No

I thought this book had a lot of potential, but ultimately was not carried out in the way I was expecting. I wish the author had spent more time on world building with this combination of witches and modern-day america, because the result felt kind of haphazardly thrown together and didn’t really make sense. the plot kind of fell apart after she visited her mother, and I didn’t understand a lot of plot choices the author made after that. beautiful writing though!