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A review by soph183
The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
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
4.0
A truly lovely book about female friendships, love and the importance of individuality. Hargrave does a lovely job of highlighting the way that opening your eyes to a new perspective can change your life completely.
The start is a little slow and the setting took me a little while to get into, but once past that I couldn’t put it down.
It is based on such an interesting concept- a dancing plague in 1518, that was a real life event!
Another review said that this book connects you to other women by showing the ways in which oppression, love, and sisterhood link us across generations, and I couldn’t agree more ! The story demonstrated the way that men used to use the church to control women/ queer people/ minorities, minimising their individuality and their feelings until they were nothing but the shells of themselves. Whilst historical fiction, there’s plenty of scary parallels to the way that men (and some religions) try to control women’s bodily autonomy today.
Also really loved the exploration of Lisbet’s maternal pain through her experiences with miscarriage and child loss, which I understand was written from the authors own life experiences- a really vulnerable and valuable perspective
The start is a little slow and the setting took me a little while to get into, but once past that I couldn’t put it down.
It is based on such an interesting concept- a dancing plague in 1518, that was a real life event!
Another review said that this book connects you to other women by showing the ways in which oppression, love, and sisterhood link us across generations, and I couldn’t agree more ! The story demonstrated the way that men used to use the church to control women/ queer people/ minorities, minimising their individuality and their feelings until they were nothing but the shells of themselves. Whilst historical fiction, there’s plenty of scary parallels to the way that men (and some religions) try to control women’s bodily autonomy today.