While waiting for my copy of The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) to arrive I did what my friend and coworker Rachel asked me to do and read this because she needed to talk about the ending.
We had both being eyeing it on the YA table at work at our local Barnes & Noble and she went ahead and read it and passed it on to me...
...And right from the beginning it was one of those WTF crazy train rides. I had all kinds of anger and disturbed feels!! I hated one character so much that I couldn't even feel bad for her at any point.
There is a line in the book that sums up the premise this book is built on..."The sin of being born a girl."
Tierney is born into a world where men fear the power of women so much they think it is some kind of magic in them and that if they send these girls off into seclusion together in their 16th year they will burn off their magic and come back to be good wives, mothers, or workers in areas that support society (fields and factories and such). Good and controllable.
No one talks about what happens during the Grace Year but not everyone comes back, not everyone who comes back is in one piece, and no one is the same after...
What these girls go through is sickening. And some of it is made worse by their own natures/personalities. But the culprit is the way the men treat the women and make them feel about themselves and each other. It is the way we are set up in our world to not see each other as compatriots but as competition, for work, for men, for being the best of all things. No one expects men to be perfect but women have a different set of standards and expectations placed on them and this is a story that takes this to one extreme.
I am still processing this but I feel like it is an important read.
(Finished 12:01am November 5, 2019 )
No comments:
Post a Comment