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A review by keisenbraun
Red Clocks by Leni Zumas
5.0
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.