A review by abbie_
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

3.25

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps her House is a novel about the violence inflicted on women by the men in their lives. You know going in that it’s going to be a tough read, but boy does Jones throw everything she’s got at you. The sheer, unending misery of the lives of these women was what made me struggle through it, but at the same time what makes it an important read. Jones states in her afterword that she wrote it to highlight the situation lots of women in Barbados find themselves in, trapped in cycles of violence, unable to see another option for themselves but to stay by the side of their abuser. The story is so driven by acts of violence (literally every bad thing you could think of that could happen to a woman) that I trudged through it, wary of whatever horror lay in the next chapter.
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I did love the way the story stripped back the layers of Barbados - to white western tourists, the name evokes a tropical paradise, but Jones depicts the everyday lives and cruelties of the folks who live there. If you enjoyed that aspect of Eve Out of Her Ruins (I prefer that one to this), then you might appreciate this one too!
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A tough read that I’m glad I read for its exposé of violence against women in Barbados, but it will leave you exhausted. 
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