Zumas experiments with different styles that change as we jump from one character to another. The narrative is fractured and messy - definitely more about experimental writing than telling a compelling and/or important story. I appreciate that this will be better suited to the kind of reader I am not.

The cleverness of Zumas’s narrative structure is that it allows readers to understand the characters both from their own perspective and as they exist in the minds of others. Their names are introduced late into their stories; until then, Zumas refers to them as “The Biographer” (Ro), “The Daughter” (Mattie), “The Mender” (Gin), and “The Wife” (Susan), in a nod to the singular categories women can be shoehorned into. Gin is revealed as a woman who loves to fix people and animals, a person with kind instincts who feels things deeply, not least of which is the impulse to isolate herself. It’s only when she’s seen by other characters that she becomes an outcast, a hermit whom the local fishermen suspect of witchcraft. Similarly, Susan and Ro judge each other’s lifestyles and choices, making presumptions that are soon challenged by the other’s narration. passed in California. We voted against Gay Marriage. I had been watching this poll early on and was worried. I kept telling Paul... “I’m concerned”. And like most liberals in California.. Paul was complacent in the beginning as in: “don’t be silly, nothing to be concerned about -this is the Bay Area of Gay Pride”.Each of the main four are dealing with womanhood issues that are threatened by the new laws. Ro's perspective is easily the most palatable, though we still have to sit through a vaginal exam that unfolds like this: I enjoyed the novel’s unique structure including the interludes of the biographer’s novel. The character development is excellent. The more I read, slowly but surely, the more I became invested in each character. I love that you start out just knowing these women’s roles in society rather than their names, but over the course of the story, you learn who they are and how they connect to one another. This is getting billed as a dystopian novel to cash in on Handmaid hysteria, but it's really not that much of a stretch from our current environment, given that abortion access is being so severely curtailed in many states. The leaders of Zumas' world, though, have taken it a step farther and banned in-vitro fertilization and are about to ban adoption by single parents. These three laws complicate the lives of four women in rural Oregon: Ro, an unmarried biographer and high school teacher desperate to have a child despite her potential infertility; Mattie, a teenager who is stunned and frightened to realize that she is pregnant; Susan, the unhappy housewife and mother of two ill-behaved young children; and Gin, a natural healer who is looked at with skepticism by the townspeople who think of her as a witch.

John goes quiet, wetly heaving.“We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching.“We are the dinosaurs. Whaddaya think of that?” It took me a little while to get going, to understand how the characters fit together, and to see how the structure of the book was going to work. But once I was oriented I found myself getting deeply absorbed. I read this book on the sidelines of t-ball practice, with people and kids running all around me, working as hard as I could to tune it out because I wanted more time in it. It was very raw. Not shy at all about challenging societal conventions. Zumas shows courage in bringing us this story. But… while this has a powerful message, and occasionally beautiful writing, connecting to the characters and the story wasn’t always easy. This wasn’t so much an “enjoyable” read as one I appreciated the reminder of the ultimate cost of complacency.

In less than three months .. [the] Every Child Needs Two [law] takes affect .. Unmarried persons will be legally prohibited from adopting children. And yet, what makes this novel popular is the fear that this little freedom will soon go away. In real life. On January fifteenth—in less than three months—this law, also known as Every Child Needs Two, takes effect. Its mission: to restore dignity, strength, and prosperity to American families. Unmarried persons will be legally prohibited from adopting children. In addition to valid marriage licenses, all adoptions will require approval through a federally regulated agency, rendering private transactions criminal. (c) If she constructs a solid argument, he’ll be convinced.But then you’d actually have to go to counseling with him.