Mary

The real curse of womanhood is that we never get to forget we have a body.

3.5 stars - this was distinctive, weird, and horrifying, and it weaves in the plight of the middle-aged, perimenopausal woman in a really artful way. Not quite a home run for me because it's a little long and meandering for a tale with basically no likable characters. (Note: this is not to say the characters are poorly drawn, or that we don't sympathize with them or even cheer them on at times. It's just that ultimately, I spent most of my time not rooting for anyone.)

After the prologue, I felt like I knew exactly what was going on, and got a little impatient with the middle of the story, like, “You already told us what the reveal will be - just reveal it already!” But even after the reveal there are some shocking and intriguing developments!

This is very disturbing and explicitly gory, with some passages suggestive of even worse (which we mercifully do not see come to fruition, but know has happened to people in the past). If you're looking for something merely creepy/ghostly, this is not it! But the violence serves the story and is effectively depicted.

All in all, this was a good read, and I very much appreciate the author doing something different and strange. I also think he wrote with remarkable sympathy and knowledge about living in a perimenopausal body! This was a cool theme to choose, and he used his research and consultations with women to good effect.