rachelhill04 's review for:

4.0

Really enjoyed this book. It felt very long when I read the hardcopy but speeding up to 1.5 speed on audio helped. There’s a lot of detail about Chinese medicine in the 1500s, most of which I found interesting but a lot of details that I didn’t really care about. That being said, I felt like those details were important to the story.

Looking at the lives of women during this time in history was fascinating. This book was also based on a true story, which I think is really cool! I loved the themes of sisterhood and female friendship. It was interesting to read about female doctors and midwives. being able to touch blood made midwives a necessary part of life during this time but also in a status where they were looked down upon in society. Tricky place to be!

Trigger warnings: miscarriage and childhood death, references to violent crimes