nina_cooper 's review for:

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas
5.0

What Leni Zumas writes about is not really that far away from the post Roe reality women face in parts of the US. In addition, the book is definitely worth reading if you like dystopian literature and enjoy following the story of a real storyteller in the best sense. Zumas manages to let us participate in the women’s perceptions, thoughts, and emotions as they go through their lives in a country that has restricted their own decision making around pregnancies, whether it is about having an abortion, or having a baby as single mother. These are not the only issues raised in the book, by the way.

Zumas’ main characters live in totally different circumstances. One is falsely accused of carrying out an abortion, one has become unintentionally pregnant, one is stuck in an unhappy marriage with two toddlers, and one is trying hard to become pregnant. But what all of them have in common is that they are basically left helpless in their respective situations. They are not extraordinary heroines who rock the world, they are basically ordinary women leading ordinary lives, but always with the shadow of restrictive laws that have taken away bodily autonomy from them.

Much of the plot has something slightly surreal and symbolic to it, especially because the women in the story are repeatedly running into massive problems outside their control. At the same time the descriptions are so life like and sometimes boringly ordinary. Actually, the women in the story are caught in a state that intentionally makes them suffer because they do not adapt to these inhumane and humiliating circumstances. I for one would not be surprised if thoughts about a witch hunt came up in other readers while reading this title.

Red Clocks is a different read. It is not like I necessarily only enjoyed reading the story, because it was overly exciting, but I did not really want to put it down either due to the dramatic situations that are totally familiar to girls and women even now, whether it is an unfulfilling marriage, unwanted pregnancy, dreaming of having a baby, and more. And I was deeply impressed, because the plot is so depressingly close to reality, and the main characters just go on, against all odds. So, Leni Zumas really managed to tell a story in an extraordinary way. 5 out of 5 stars.