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A review by ariizolas
Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
2.0
well that was certainly...something. be sure to be in a good mindset before reading this one - a lot of triggering stuff that doesn't necessarily get resolved by the end.
i cant help but compare this to one of my favorite feminist dystopia books, the grace year. obviously they are marketed to different audiences - gather the daughters is adult fiction while the grace year is decidedly YA. but grace year featured a supremely fucked up cult and society without making pedophilia a core feature of its plot, and to me that makes all the difference. you can write a good book while still being graceful about things like these, and while this book is thankfully not explicit about these scenes, it's not exactly subtle either.
my biggest complaint about this book is probably the fact that it insisted on making the fathers in this story morally grey despite the fact that they assault their daughters every night. interesting literary technique? maybe. but books don't exist in a vacuum, and this in addition to the weird fixation on white skin, janey's body and her refusal to eat, and the constant worry on the part of the characters that they may be a "defective," is extremely concerning.
where grace year offered a glimmer of hope at the very end, this book unceremoniously ends with the death of a revolution and the women of this story being outright abandoned by the main character. not a fan, don't think this book is responsible at all. its only saving grace is the quality of its prose.
(if anyone from my internship reads this no you didn't)
i cant help but compare this to one of my favorite feminist dystopia books, the grace year. obviously they are marketed to different audiences - gather the daughters is adult fiction while the grace year is decidedly YA. but grace year featured a supremely fucked up cult and society without making pedophilia a core feature of its plot, and to me that makes all the difference. you can write a good book while still being graceful about things like these, and while this book is thankfully not explicit about these scenes, it's not exactly subtle either.
my biggest complaint about this book is probably the fact that it insisted on making the fathers in this story morally grey despite the fact that they assault their daughters every night. interesting literary technique? maybe. but books don't exist in a vacuum, and this in addition to the weird fixation on white skin, janey's body and her refusal to eat, and the constant worry on the part of the characters that they may be a "defective," is extremely concerning.
where grace year offered a glimmer of hope at the very end, this book unceremoniously ends with the death of a revolution and the women of this story being outright abandoned by the main character. not a fan, don't think this book is responsible at all. its only saving grace is the quality of its prose.
(if anyone from my internship reads this no you didn't)