esquiretical65 's review for:

Westward Women by Alice Martin

3.0

adventurous emotional mysterious

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A speculative historical novel following four women grappling with the fallout of a mysterious infection (shades of The Last of Us) that prompts women to head west. While Martin is clearly a strong writer, this novel was unfortunately not for me. The idea of rendering women’s dissatisfaction as a physical, infectious “itch” is a great hook, but the twists and turns are a little too neat, and I wasn’t really satisfied by the story’s nebulous end. I thought the collective unconscious/shared dream chapters would lead to a revelation about the infection’s origins or at least explain its function, but they ultimately petered out in a strange monologue. That said, I always am thrilled to read a novel that passes the Bechdel test with flying colors and I think many people will enjoy this “fever dream” of a book.