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lattelibrarian 's review for:
Godshot
by Chelsea Bieker
"I imagined turning and telling them both what Lyle had done. But I stopped. I wouldn't be a fool. To tell them about Lyle would only be telling them about myself."
A rough, unexpected, fantastic read, Godshot offers a glimpse into a rural town in which religion can bring back the rain. Peaches is thirsty for water, having experienced months, years of drought. But Pastor Vern has a plan to bring rain and fertility back to the land. Enter Lacey May and her mother. They stay with Lacey May's grandmother, Cherry, in the hopes that religion will bring them back to a straighter path. But when Pastor Vern gives everyone their assignments--including the young girls who have just started menstruating--Lacey May's mother becomes wary about just what kind of church this really is.
Upon failing her assignment, Lacey May's mother is cast out of the church, and abandons her daughter, just when she needs her most. Lacey May does not have the vocabulary for what happens to her, rape and incest, but understands that she now bears a child. Motherless and preyed upon by Pastor Vern, she wants nothing more than to find just where her mother is. So she sets out to the house where she used to work, calling men who want to hear a woman's voice.
Culminating in a heartbreaking scene of cult-sickness and birth, Chelsea Bieker has successfully created a tale filled with strife, mother-loss, and the need to belong, if at least somewhere. Lacey May's naivete is one that I recognize from girlhood, and the ways in which men manipulate are all too familiar. This is a truly stunning book, one that I found hard to come back to the real world from. Bieker writes true, and she writes passionately.
A rough, unexpected, fantastic read, Godshot offers a glimpse into a rural town in which religion can bring back the rain. Peaches is thirsty for water, having experienced months, years of drought. But Pastor Vern has a plan to bring rain and fertility back to the land. Enter Lacey May and her mother. They stay with Lacey May's grandmother, Cherry, in the hopes that religion will bring them back to a straighter path. But when Pastor Vern gives everyone their assignments--including the young girls who have just started menstruating--Lacey May's mother becomes wary about just what kind of church this really is.
Upon failing her assignment, Lacey May's mother is cast out of the church, and abandons her daughter, just when she needs her most. Lacey May does not have the vocabulary for what happens to her, rape and incest, but understands that she now bears a child. Motherless and preyed upon by Pastor Vern, she wants nothing more than to find just where her mother is. So she sets out to the house where she used to work, calling men who want to hear a woman's voice.
Culminating in a heartbreaking scene of cult-sickness and birth, Chelsea Bieker has successfully created a tale filled with strife, mother-loss, and the need to belong, if at least somewhere. Lacey May's naivete is one that I recognize from girlhood, and the ways in which men manipulate are all too familiar. This is a truly stunning book, one that I found hard to come back to the real world from. Bieker writes true, and she writes passionately.