Women Talking
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3.9 • 197 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The basis of the Oscar-winning film from writer/director Sarah Polley, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, with Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand.
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
"This amazing, sad, shocking, but touching novel, based on a real-life event, could be right out of The Handmaid's Tale." -Margaret Atwood, on Twitter
"Scorching . . . a wry, freewheeling novel of ideas that touches on the nature of evil, questions of free will, collective responsibility, cultural determinism, and, above all, forgiveness." -New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice
One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm.
While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women-all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in-have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they've ever known or should they dare to escape?
Based on real events and told through the "minutes" of the women's all-female symposium, Toews's masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A band of isolated women contemplate their future in this powerful novel inspired by actual events. A small Mennonite community is rocked by scandal when it comes to light that men have been drugging women and girls with animal tranquilizers and brutally raping them, then telling the victims that they were assaulted by demons. As the attackers are briefly jailed, eight of the women meet in secret to debate whether they’re better off staying and living alongside their predators or trying to leave—with no maps, no knowledge of the outside world, no ability to read. Miriam Toews’ writing style is straightforward and eloquent, imbuing her characters with purposeful anger and wit. It’s easy to see why this intense novel was adapted into a film by director Sarah Polley starring Frances McDormand and Rooney Mara. It’s a story of honesty, resilience, and compassion that hits hard.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After more than 300 women in the Mennonite colony of Molotschna were attacked between 2005 and 2009, eight of the settlement's women, from the Loewen and Friesen families, gather secretly to discuss their plan of action in this powerful novel by Toews (All My Puny Sorrows). They believed that the nightly attacks were by ghosts and demons until a man was caught and named other perpetrators; then the women realized that the victims were drugged and raped by men from their community. The Friesens want to stay and fight the men, and the Loewens want to leave Molotschna altogether; the rest of the women in the colony decide to do nothing and skip the clandestine meetings. Schoolteacher August Epp who takes the minutes of the meetings for the women, since they are illiterate, and is trusted by them because he's been ostracized by the community's men tracks every conversation leading to the women's final decision. Through Epp, Toews has found a way to add lightness and humor to the deeply upsetting and terrifying narrative while weaving in Epp's own distressing backstory. Epp's observations (such as those about how the women physically react or respond when someone shares a divisive suggestion) are astute, and through him readers are able to see how carefully and intentionally the women think through their life-changing decision critically discussing their roles in society, their love for their families and religion, and their hopes and desires for the future. This is an inspiring and unforgettable novel.
Customer Reviews
See AllDeeply scary and thought provoking
I am mystified by some of the other reviews but I put it down to innate stupidity because this has all the tension of a horror film where the force of evil is never actually seen (the poisoners and rapists) but the results of their evil is evident in the beaten and broken women and the desperation to escape.
A story that I couldn’t believe was true
This was a well written story that held my interest in horror. Everyone, regardless of gender or orientation, needs to read this account of women being taken advantage of and abused. And then seeing the hope of fighting g back.
Women Talking
Lots of woke ideology crammed into an otherwise good story premise. Made me decide NOT to go see the film