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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
This book attempts to imagine a world in which the United States adopts a "life begins at conception" amendment to the Constitution (it was interesting to read this while following the coverage of Ireland repealing a similar amendment). This amendment makes both abortion and IVF strictly forbidden; in addition, the US also enacts an "Every Child Needs Two" law which outlaws single-parent adoption.
I will say that I have some problems with this setup -- even in today's political climate I struggle to imagine a House and Senate with a 2/3 majority for such a draconian amendment. In addition I was disappointed that there was no serious consideration of gay and lesbian couples and what the new IVF and adoption regulations might mean for them.
However, I am willing to hand-wave the setup because what is actually on the page is thoughtful and lovely and empathetic to a wide range of views. Zumas doesn't plunge the reader into a full-on dystopia as The Handmaid's Tale; instead Red Clocks takes us maybe a step-and-a-half into darkness. There are no red robes here; instead there is a Pink Wall, because Canada will arrest women trying to enter to have an abortion.
The novel really just gestures at a plot; Zumas is most interested in her four main characters--a pregnant teen, a single woman who wants to become a mother, an unhappily married woman, and an herbalist--and what they think and how they feel about the world around them. It's a thought experiment, but a compelling one, and easily one of the best books I've read this year.
I will say that I have some problems with this setup -- even in today's political climate I struggle to imagine a House and Senate with a 2/3 majority for such a draconian amendment. In addition I was disappointed that there was no serious consideration of gay and lesbian couples and what the new IVF and adoption regulations might mean for them.
However, I am willing to hand-wave the setup because what is actually on the page is thoughtful and lovely and empathetic to a wide range of views. Zumas doesn't plunge the reader into a full-on dystopia as The Handmaid's Tale; instead Red Clocks takes us maybe a step-and-a-half into darkness. There are no red robes here; instead there is a Pink Wall, because Canada will arrest women trying to enter to have an abortion.
The novel really just gestures at a plot; Zumas is most interested in her four main characters--a pregnant teen, a single woman who wants to become a mother, an unhappily married woman, and an herbalist--and what they think and how they feel about the world around them. It's a thought experiment, but a compelling one, and easily one of the best books I've read this year.
Beautifully written, lyrical, and poignant. Though speculative in nature this book feels like it takes place no further than a month from now. Zumas weaves an intricate study of women and the often unseen connections that lay between people. She paints a terrifying vision of life that is unfortunately a very real possibility. Heartbreaking, but hopeful, Red Clocks is a true stunner.
Intriguing tale of what if abortion was illegal, IVF was only available to couples, and parenthood was only available if there was a mother and a father.
I absolutely loved this book. The narrative structure is a bit unconventional -- Zumas often uses lists or very short paragraphs or sometimes just a series of short descriptive phrases. I loved it, but some readers have described it as choppy and hard to get into.
This is a quieter and more intimate sort of dystopian story, showing 4 different women* navigating their lives and grappling with questions of motherhood and identity following the enactment of anti-abortion legislation. Zumas uses small but significant stylistic choices throughout the book to illustrate the increasing lack of agency in her characters' lives. For example, she doesn't even refer to them by their names much of the time, but instead by their roles in the story (the daughter, the wife, the biographer, the mender).
The year is unspecified, but it reads like the present day. You won't find women forced to wear red cloaks or having their jobs taken away and bank accounts closed. You will find pregnant teens attempting dangerous at-home terminations or trying to sneak across the border to Canada, even though a "Pink Wall" has been erected and the Canadian government has agreed to return abortion seekers to US law enforcement. You will find a 40-something single woman, desperate for a child of her own, whose options are running out, as the Personhood Amendment, which grants rights to fetuses at the moment of conception, has rendered in-vitro fertilization illegal (the embryos can't consent to be transferred), and the forthcoming "Every Child Needs Two" law prohibits adoption by single parents. You'll also find an unhappy stay-at-home mom and an herbalist who is arrested on charges of "Conspiracy to Commit Murder" through the use of herbal abortifacients.
I actually found the claim that the herbalist's trial "brings all their fates together" to be a bit of a stretch. Some of the storylines intersect only tangentially, but I thought they all came to a satisfying conclusion. This is one of the best books I have ever read and it's going on my all-time favorites list.
* The book's description says 5 women. The fifth is the subject of a book one of the characters is writing. Her segments are very short and I felt like she was less of an actual character than a structural element.
This is a quieter and more intimate sort of dystopian story, showing 4 different women* navigating their lives and grappling with questions of motherhood and identity following the enactment of anti-abortion legislation. Zumas uses small but significant stylistic choices throughout the book to illustrate the increasing lack of agency in her characters' lives. For example, she doesn't even refer to them by their names much of the time, but instead by their roles in the story (the daughter, the wife, the biographer, the mender).
The year is unspecified, but it reads like the present day. You won't find women forced to wear red cloaks or having their jobs taken away and bank accounts closed. You will find pregnant teens attempting dangerous at-home terminations or trying to sneak across the border to Canada, even though a "Pink Wall" has been erected and the Canadian government has agreed to return abortion seekers to US law enforcement. You will find a 40-something single woman, desperate for a child of her own, whose options are running out, as the Personhood Amendment, which grants rights to fetuses at the moment of conception, has rendered in-vitro fertilization illegal (the embryos can't consent to be transferred), and the forthcoming "Every Child Needs Two" law prohibits adoption by single parents. You'll also find an unhappy stay-at-home mom and an herbalist who is arrested on charges of "Conspiracy to Commit Murder" through the use of herbal abortifacients.
I actually found the claim that the herbalist's trial "brings all their fates together" to be a bit of a stretch. Some of the storylines intersect only tangentially, but I thought they all came to a satisfying conclusion. This is one of the best books I have ever read and it's going on my all-time favorites list.
* The book's description says 5 women. The fifth is the subject of a book one of the characters is writing. Her segments are very short and I felt like she was less of an actual character than a structural element.
It took about 50 pages for me to get into this, but I'm so glad I stuck it out that long because it was a great read. I loved how all of the characters were connected in the end, but it was a little disorienting to start.
I am glad I didn't give up on this novel. It's a near future look at the evolution of political control women's bodies, and what makes a family which is made possible by a bedrock of historical and modern patriarchy and how we internalise these ideologies.
I very kindly received this book as an e-arc through Netgalley and HarperCollins UK.
More like a 3.5. It really only picked up by about halfway through and that was enough to push me through.
I can see why people are hailing this novel as the next 'The Handmaids Tale', because the similarities between the two books ring surprisingly clear. However, this dystopia presents us with a future that, in the current political climate, doesn't seem too distant. In this future, the Personhood Amendment reverses Roe vs Wade and now, abortion is illegal and those who attempt to provide it can be sentenced to life in prison. This is a really interesting novel that just didn't really pick up until about halfway through, when you start to be able to differentiate between the four women that this book revolves around. A lot of it kind of feels like filler, building up for something that isn't hugely well paid off by the end of the novel. However, I did enjoy it, and I definitely devoured the last half of this book. It felt much more relevant than the first half.
'Red Clocks' was released in the UK on 16th January 2018.
More like a 3.5. It really only picked up by about halfway through and that was enough to push me through.
I can see why people are hailing this novel as the next 'The Handmaids Tale', because the similarities between the two books ring surprisingly clear. However, this dystopia presents us with a future that, in the current political climate, doesn't seem too distant. In this future, the Personhood Amendment reverses Roe vs Wade and now, abortion is illegal and those who attempt to provide it can be sentenced to life in prison. This is a really interesting novel that just didn't really pick up until about halfway through, when you start to be able to differentiate between the four women that this book revolves around. A lot of it kind of feels like filler, building up for something that isn't hugely well paid off by the end of the novel. However, I did enjoy it, and I definitely devoured the last half of this book. It felt much more relevant than the first half.
'Red Clocks' was released in the UK on 16th January 2018.
It's rare that a book will speak equally to my brain and my heart.
Red Clocks begins with a simple premise, which might seem like a dystopian to some, the beginning of what eventually happens in The Handmaid's Tale; but is actually both a reality in some developing countries and quite possible to happen in countries in which conservative men have risen to power (ahem!): abortion is illegal, in vitro insemination is illegal and in the works is coming a law that will make single parent adoptive families illegal. To people from the USA, it might seem awful, but I must say that some of these are realities in many other countries. Abortion is illegal in Brazil (though a few exceptions are sometimes granted: to save the mother's life or in case of rape and in some cases of embryo deformity not compatible with life) and many Latin American countries, as well as most of Africa and Asia have those restrictions. In some countries (though they are a minority), it is illegal without exception. So, yeah, not such a crazy reality to imagine, so this book feels much more contemporary than dystopian to me.
With this premise, the book chronicles a slice of life of five women: The Biographer (Ro Stephens) who really wants to have a baby but can't and divides her time between this now obsession, her life as a high school history teacher and writing the biography of an obscure female polar explorer (The Explorer - Eivor Minervudottir) from the 19th century, whose discoveries had to be published under the name of a man because no-one would believe a female would have made this kind of scientific contribution.
She is submitting her area to all kinds of invasion without understanding a fraction of what's being done to it
The Mender (Gin Percival) is the local witch, though she is not exactly a with, but simply someone who prefers to live away from human company and who understands the laws of nature and knows how to manipulate them in a way that might seem magical but it is really a form of science. The Mender helps women who need solutions society won't give them.
On the first night, the mender asked what that noise was and learned it was the ocean. "But when does it stop?" "Never," said her aunt. "It's perpetual, though impermanent."
The Daughter (Mattie Quarles), who is adopted by a loving (though conservative) pair of elderly parents, finds herself pregnant and with no desire to carry on the pregnancy. The child feels like an invasion on her body, of which she wishes to get rid of.
Sixteen years ago abortion was legal in every state. Why did she spend nine months growing the daughter if she was just going to give her up?
The Wife (Susan Korsmo) who has two kids, isn't affected by any of those laws, but is unhappy in her married life with no other perspective other than staying married. That makes her bitter towards other women, who seemingly have both better and worse than she does at the same time.
How do you help a cinder, half-alive? Run over it fast to stop the burning.
The books switches between these four perspectives (with bits about the explorer contained in the biographer's book), in a form of experimental writing. I realized it might not be for everyone. The chronology is not linear and the writing itself is not straight forward. For me, those were the things that made this book. I also, for some reason connected with each of the characters, rooted for them, felt their pain and felt them were real and alive and their sufferings were both strange and familiar at once. Other than that, the plot kept me interested, there were plenty of moments in which you make connections between the lives of the different characters, which were very satisfying.
I kept wanting to read it on and on, and that is always amazing.
Like I said at the beginning, this book spoke to my heart, which craves this empathy for characters and a plot that keeps you interested the whole way through. It's not plot heavy, there are some high stakes, but it is really more a "slice-of-life" kind of story, which I did enjoy, though I don't always. It also spoked to my brain, because the writing was well crafted, the discussions it rises were poignant.
I would have to recommend this book for discussion purposes, for people who are unsure whether they support abortion or unsure if they are feminists. Or if you already sure, this will inflame you with much needed desire to "not just shake your head, but do something about it" to paraphrase the book's words.
A note: this book does not address how these laws would affect homosexual or otherwise non-binary people and couples, which I felt it was both a missed opportunity and a very big slight, because those realities and stories are equally important.
To quit shrinking life to a checked box, a calendar square. To quit shaking her head. (...) To be okay with not knowing. (...) To see what is. And to see what is possible.
Red Clocks begins with a simple premise, which might seem like a dystopian to some, the beginning of what eventually happens in The Handmaid's Tale; but is actually both a reality in some developing countries and quite possible to happen in countries in which conservative men have risen to power (ahem!): abortion is illegal, in vitro insemination is illegal and in the works is coming a law that will make single parent adoptive families illegal. To people from the USA, it might seem awful, but I must say that some of these are realities in many other countries. Abortion is illegal in Brazil (though a few exceptions are sometimes granted: to save the mother's life or in case of rape and in some cases of embryo deformity not compatible with life) and many Latin American countries, as well as most of Africa and Asia have those restrictions. In some countries (though they are a minority), it is illegal without exception. So, yeah, not such a crazy reality to imagine, so this book feels much more contemporary than dystopian to me.
With this premise, the book chronicles a slice of life of five women: The Biographer (Ro Stephens) who really wants to have a baby but can't and divides her time between this now obsession, her life as a high school history teacher and writing the biography of an obscure female polar explorer (The Explorer - Eivor Minervudottir) from the 19th century, whose discoveries had to be published under the name of a man because no-one would believe a female would have made this kind of scientific contribution.
She is submitting her area to all kinds of invasion without understanding a fraction of what's being done to it
The Mender (Gin Percival) is the local witch, though she is not exactly a with, but simply someone who prefers to live away from human company and who understands the laws of nature and knows how to manipulate them in a way that might seem magical but it is really a form of science. The Mender helps women who need solutions society won't give them.
On the first night, the mender asked what that noise was and learned it was the ocean. "But when does it stop?" "Never," said her aunt. "It's perpetual, though impermanent."
The Daughter (Mattie Quarles), who is adopted by a loving (though conservative) pair of elderly parents, finds herself pregnant and with no desire to carry on the pregnancy. The child feels like an invasion on her body, of which she wishes to get rid of.
Sixteen years ago abortion was legal in every state. Why did she spend nine months growing the daughter if she was just going to give her up?
The Wife (Susan Korsmo) who has two kids, isn't affected by any of those laws, but is unhappy in her married life with no other perspective other than staying married. That makes her bitter towards other women, who seemingly have both better and worse than she does at the same time.
How do you help a cinder, half-alive? Run over it fast to stop the burning.
The books switches between these four perspectives (with bits about the explorer contained in the biographer's book), in a form of experimental writing. I realized it might not be for everyone. The chronology is not linear and the writing itself is not straight forward. For me, those were the things that made this book. I also, for some reason connected with each of the characters, rooted for them, felt their pain and felt them were real and alive and their sufferings were both strange and familiar at once. Other than that, the plot kept me interested, there were plenty of moments in which you make connections between the lives of the different characters, which were very satisfying.
I kept wanting to read it on and on, and that is always amazing.
Like I said at the beginning, this book spoke to my heart, which craves this empathy for characters and a plot that keeps you interested the whole way through. It's not plot heavy, there are some high stakes, but it is really more a "slice-of-life" kind of story, which I did enjoy, though I don't always. It also spoked to my brain, because the writing was well crafted, the discussions it rises were poignant.
I would have to recommend this book for discussion purposes, for people who are unsure whether they support abortion or unsure if they are feminists. Or if you already sure, this will inflame you with much needed desire to "not just shake your head, but do something about it" to paraphrase the book's words.
A note: this book does not address how these laws would affect homosexual or otherwise non-binary people and couples, which I felt it was both a missed opportunity and a very big slight, because those realities and stories are equally important.
To quit shrinking life to a checked box, a calendar square. To quit shaking her head. (...) To be okay with not knowing. (...) To see what is. And to see what is possible.
What happens if the States were to ban abortions, make it harder for people to adopt, and outlaw in vitro fertilisation, and insist on two parents as the only legitimate model for a family? These are the questions this novel addresses, focusing on 4 women who live in a small Oregon town, and they are all named by the roles they play: the Biographer, the Wife, the Daughter, and the Mender. It takes a while for the reader to see how they are related to one another, and it may seem like a frustrating narrative device to make the reader work harder at first. But Zumas is making a statement about the reductive way individuals are nailed to certain labels, when they are so much more than that, and it is through the unfolding of each of their intertwined narratives that we become aware of their multi-faceted personalities.
For a dystopian novel, the ordinariness of the characters’ world is underlined by the natural way in which personal rights are wrested without much drama, and the chillingly wide acceptance of the way things are. That arguably makes it even more terrifying. There are no huge displays of political hegemony or the threat of mass violence in any way, save for the domestic kind, and even that is related indirectly and recounted as part of a minor character’s story. The individual dramas of the Biographer and the Wife, for instance, are to do with loneliness, personal fulfilment, the pursuit of happiness in a deadened marriage, and career woes, all very realistic and by no means unimportant issues in and of themselves.
As character studies, Zumas does more than an able job at keeping us interested in her four leads, but as a novel with larger aspirations (if that is what it is meant to achieve), somehow the issues touted never quite come to the fore, beyond individual drama. And for a large part of it, they lie within the internal mindscape of these characters, save for the daughter’s foray beyond the borders to good old Canada to terminate her pregnancy, but even that is more of a little flub than a climactic event.
An enjoyable enough novel in its own right, but comparing it with a groundbreaking work like “The Handmaid’s Tale”, like how it’s being marketed, may be stretching it a little.
For a dystopian novel, the ordinariness of the characters’ world is underlined by the natural way in which personal rights are wrested without much drama, and the chillingly wide acceptance of the way things are. That arguably makes it even more terrifying. There are no huge displays of political hegemony or the threat of mass violence in any way, save for the domestic kind, and even that is related indirectly and recounted as part of a minor character’s story. The individual dramas of the Biographer and the Wife, for instance, are to do with loneliness, personal fulfilment, the pursuit of happiness in a deadened marriage, and career woes, all very realistic and by no means unimportant issues in and of themselves.
As character studies, Zumas does more than an able job at keeping us interested in her four leads, but as a novel with larger aspirations (if that is what it is meant to achieve), somehow the issues touted never quite come to the fore, beyond individual drama. And for a large part of it, they lie within the internal mindscape of these characters, save for the daughter’s foray beyond the borders to good old Canada to terminate her pregnancy, but even that is more of a little flub than a climactic event.
An enjoyable enough novel in its own right, but comparing it with a groundbreaking work like “The Handmaid’s Tale”, like how it’s being marketed, may be stretching it a little.
A book with an intriguing premise, not too far from the current trend in America, but that keeps the audience at a distance. The idea of this book brought me in for a read, but the narrative couldn't hold up to the questions it asked.
Red Clocks presents a future America where abortion is banned and IVF is not allowed because it violates embryos rights. The story follows four women navigating life in this new America. Other than brief moments of visceral tension (like when a pregnant teen is stopped at the Candian border) the book distances the reader from the characters, choosing to call them "The Biographer" or "The Wife" instead of by their names for large portions of the narrative. If there was more a sense of how these perceived roles affected the outcomes of these women or how society placed these monikers to force them into cookie-cutter expectations that would be one thing. But for me, these only acted to remove me from the story and lose connection with the characters.
Unlike in The Handmaid's Tale, where the experience is conveyed through harsh prose and swallows the reader into the world, Red Clocks wants to analyze how women would live in the hypothetical world. This analysis view detracts from allowing the reader to fully engage with the characters removing them from the experience.
While the scenarios for each of the characters do revolve, in some way, around pregnancy and Motherhood, there is only a lateral connection to how these enforced rules have affected and altered the characters lives. "The Daughter" story is the only one where there are true connections to this new world, but there is little consequence for the ordeal she goes through. Perhaps it is meant to suggest that by banning abortion it will only go back underground but can never be prevented. But I do not see how this links back to a larger picture of what the author is trying to convey.
The book does reach catharsis for each of its characters and their individual stories. But I fail to see how these four (five if you count the explorer) stories add up to being a critique of banning abortion or of forced morality or of controlling woman's lives through law. I'm left wanting someone to dig deeper into these ideas and explore through the eyes of other characters what the world created by the author would feel like. Maybe there needed to be fewer characters or perhaps a first-person narrative could have connected the readers more to this subject. In the end, I'm left with wanting more, but not in a good way. Wanting more because the author didn't focus enough on the premise she set out to explore.
Red Clocks presents a future America where abortion is banned and IVF is not allowed because it violates embryos rights. The story follows four women navigating life in this new America. Other than brief moments of visceral tension (like when a pregnant teen is stopped at the Candian border) the book distances the reader from the characters, choosing to call them "The Biographer" or "The Wife" instead of by their names for large portions of the narrative. If there was more a sense of how these perceived roles affected the outcomes of these women or how society placed these monikers to force them into cookie-cutter expectations that would be one thing. But for me, these only acted to remove me from the story and lose connection with the characters.
Unlike in The Handmaid's Tale, where the experience is conveyed through harsh prose and swallows the reader into the world, Red Clocks wants to analyze how women would live in the hypothetical world. This analysis view detracts from allowing the reader to fully engage with the characters removing them from the experience.
While the scenarios for each of the characters do revolve, in some way, around pregnancy and Motherhood, there is only a lateral connection to how these enforced rules have affected and altered the characters lives. "The Daughter" story is the only one where there are true connections to this new world, but there is little consequence for the ordeal she goes through. Perhaps it is meant to suggest that by banning abortion it will only go back underground but can never be prevented. But I do not see how this links back to a larger picture of what the author is trying to convey.
The book does reach catharsis for each of its characters and their individual stories. But I fail to see how these four (five if you count the explorer) stories add up to being a critique of banning abortion or of forced morality or of controlling woman's lives through law. I'm left wanting someone to dig deeper into these ideas and explore through the eyes of other characters what the world created by the author would feel like. Maybe there needed to be fewer characters or perhaps a first-person narrative could have connected the readers more to this subject. In the end, I'm left with wanting more, but not in a good way. Wanting more because the author didn't focus enough on the premise she set out to explore.