Desulti: An Epic Fantasy by Ross Hightower and Deb Heim; Fascinating Feminist Fantasy Focuses on Fascism and Infighting.

 Desulti: An Epic Fantasy by Ross Hightower and Deb Heim; Fascinating Feminist Fantasy Focuses on Fascism and Infighting.

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Sometimes when groups get together for a common purpose, it is assumed that they will be on the same page and work together. That isn't always the case. There might still be animosity because of where people come from, ethnicity, political beliefs, separate biases, socio-economic background, or any other reason. They often have to ask themselves if the cause or threat that brought them together were removed, would they still have any other common ground? Would they defend each other? Would they think about one another's circumstances? Would they even be friends and allies or sworn enemies?

That is the central conflict surrounding Ross Hightower and Deb Heim’s Epic Fantasy novel, Desulti. 

Before I begin to summarize the novel, I would like to commend Hightower and Helm for their brilliant clever way of getting the Readers up to speed with the previous novel, Argren Blue. Because Desulti is a prequel to the authors’ Spirit Song trilogy and is itself the second volume in the prequel trilogy, Readers are bound to be lost. No matter, Hightower and Helm offer a very interesting twist on summarizing Argren Blue. In the Introduction, a monk tells his young protege the events of the previous volume as a story. 

The monk gives an oral history lesson to the boy about how Tove, the main protagonist, fled the Inquisition that imprisoned and scarred her and met the Desulti, an organization of women who obtained power through wealth. The Desulti use that vast wealth and their team of warriors, the Murtair, to protect, shelter, and defend other women. After she is helped by a Desulti, Tove decides to seek sanctuary with the organization and possibly join.

This introduction shows how important oral history and storytelling often is in an agrarian Medieval-like Fantasy setting. When many forms of communication do not exist or are sparse, news, history, myth, and legend are often orally repeated. The opening prepares us for the society that we are going to encounter.

Desulti picks up where Argren Blue left off with Tove asking for sanctuary. She is given it and decides to join. Unfortunately, she is faced with a huge stumbling block. The Desulti are a presence within the Empire and Tove was part of the Oss’stera, a group of rebels against that same Empire. Most importantly, she is an Alle’oss or l’osse, the lower caste. Most Desulti are part of Volloch, the upper caste and look down on the Alle’oss. Despite this prejudice, Tove is accepted into the Desulti but does not receive a warm welcome by many. She is the butt of several pranks, given grunt work as an assignment, stereotyped, gossipped about, and is the focus of several rumors meant to undermine her reputation. Most seriously, she is despised by Lyssa, the Chief Executive of the Desulti and Nessa, the Murtair Leader. The pranks and prejudice increase particularly as Tove and her new allies discover a hidden conspiracy within the Desulti that could put the entire group in jeopardy.

Desulti is a fantasy novel with a theme that is all too real in our modern life: a theme of prejudice. People will use any means to put themselves and others into separate groups: race, politics, country of origin, religion, class, anything. It becomes us vs. them and anyone could be considered a “them.” As long as someone is different, an Other, someone else will find a means to hate them and express that hatred. That is what the focus is on in this book.

Tove is determined to prove herself within this group that she sought sanctuary from. She aspires to become a Murtair because she sees women defending themselves and achieving power. For someone who has faced arrest, torture, sexual assault, physical attacks that left her scarred, and emotional attacks that left her traumatized that objective is tantalizing. She is willing to face the most demeaning jobs and her judgemental colleagues if it means that she can excel within the Desulti.

Tove makes some powerful enemies, most notably Lyssa. Tove's arrival could not have come at a worse time for her. She has her own ambitions for what she wants to turn the Desulti into and won't let anyone stand in the way of that goal, especially a newcomer that represents a social caste that she has no loyalty towards. 

Lyssa has the makings of a cult leader or Fascist dictator. She tramples on the Desulti’s values, particularly their goal to protect all women from sexual assault and marginalization. They aspire to be independently wealthy as warriors, priestesses, merchants, and tradeswomen. While they influence the Empire, they try to keep an unbiased approach that advises but doesn't allow the Emperor to seize power over them. 

Lyssa however wants the Desulti to be a central Imperial power. She is willing to move operations to the Capitol City and become an official advisor to the Emperor. She has biases about who should join the Desulti and wants all members to be similar to herself, all Volloch, all uniform, all Imperial loyalists, and all devoted to Lyssa and her goals. 

She wants to deprive the Desulti of the independence that they fought so hard for for her own personal gain. She doesn't like the Emperor but loves control more than she loves the Desulti. Since she can't get power for herself as a woman in a male dominated society, she wants to be the influence behind the throne and sway Imperial rule in her favor. As power hungry as the Emperor is, he wants to let her create a tyranny of conformity and prejudice. 

Lyssa also connives and claws her way to authority within the Desulti. She manipulates by using member's vulnerabilities. She delights in degrading and humiliating Tove though pretends to be a detached leader. She resorts to kidnapping and emotional blackmail to gain allyship. She is someone who pays lip service to solidarity and loyalty but is completely self-centered. She breaks any law or vow to push herself up and forward. 

Tove's presence upsets Lyssa’s ambitions by her mere presence. She gives a fresh outlook to the other Desulti where they recognize that an Alle’oss has a lot to offer coming from a different background, having a different perspective, and therefore carrying a different voice than the others. They recognize that Tove being there carries real value.

Tove makes some strong allies within the Desulti. Soifre, the Chief Financial Officer, has the same prejudices against the Alle’oss as Lyssa and many of their colleagues. However, she is pragmatic enough to see the advantages of recommending Tove for membership. She also has the foresight to see that opening their organization to Alle’oss means new members, more money, stronger voices, and more influence.

Cianna is appointed Tove’s counselor and often provides important information to Tove and other women. She also becomes an informant when she reveals what she knows about the conspiracy spearheaded by Lyssa.

Brie is a Desulti who lured Tove to them and becomes a staunch ally and friend of hers. Most importantly, her sister, Danu bonds with Tove to the point of becoming a love interest. Towards the end, Tove and Danu become committed lovers, practically a married couple. They are aware that Tove’s destiny could constantly put her in danger and Danu will constantly be anxious about her safety. However, they are willing to face this truth together.

One of the most powerful moments in the book is when Tove and other members of the Desulti confess that they come from different parts of the Empire, have their own reasons to join the Desulti, and had to deal with various struggles before signing up and great sacrifices that they have made since. They realize that despite the differences that they had before they arrived, they are now Desulti. They are brought together for a single purpose. The differences are miniscule because they have a common ground to work hard and gain independence and solidarity. It brings a tear to the eye when they all chant, “I am (Alle’oss etc.) and I am Desulti and I'm proud!” 

Desulti is the type of book that gives Readers an Epic Fantasy setting but tells a story that resonates in real life. We all feel like outsiders for some reason. Sometimes we are oppressed because of those differences by people who can seem more powerful. The point is to organize and recognize those similar issues. To unite for not only a common purpose but to give voice to the individual experiences and concerns. To make sure that diverse voices are represented within the main purpose.

 For example equal rights for women is a common purpose for Feminists and Women's Rights activists, but they must also look at individual struggles from all women including women of color, immigrants, working class women, women from different religions and politics, lesbians, and trans women. They have their own individual experiences and issues but they contribute to the main goal of receiving equality for women to earn their own money, receive equal pay, and have the right to make decisions about their own bodies.

It's important to belong to a group but just as important to be oneself within that group. That way true change can finally happen for everyone.

Virtuous Women by Ann Goltz; Contemporary Literature Novel Skewers Religion, Cults, and Restrictive Traditional Gender Roles

 Virtuous Women by Ann Goltz; Contemporary Literature Novel Skewers Religion, Cults, and Restrictive Traditional Gender Roles

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Now we return to a favorite topic of this blog: Religion and Religious Cults. The Quiverfull Movement is a Christian theological position which encourages marital procreation with the intent to create large families. Its followers abstain from contraceptives, family planning, and sterilization reversal. Among the most famous, or rather infamous, adherents are Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of reality television fame. 

Virtuous Women by Ann Goltz is a brilliant Contemporary Literature Novel that skewers religious cults and the Quiverfull Movement by showing the detrimental effect that they have on the women who are involved within them. In a time when women’s rights are eroding because of interference from Christian Evangelicals, the dangers that such a strict environment can bring cannot be stressed enough. 

Hope Wagner is the oldest girl in a religious family of ten children. Because of her status, she has to fill the motherly role towards caring for her younger siblings left by the death of their mother. However she is soon to approach the marrying age of 18 and her father, Michael will be left without a housekeeper. The elders of the Church of the Covenant order Michael to get remarried and they have the perfect candidate. Enter Jennifer Levine, a newcomer to the Church from an outsider background.

Goltz’s writing is brilliant with how she captures how people fall into such Fundamentalism and how people can be destroyed when they religiously (pun not intended) follow such a path.What is fascinating about the first half of the book is that the Church of the Covenant seems deceptively alright.

If you read a lot of Inspirational Fiction or watch a lot of Hallmark Holiday Rom Coms, you might recognize the pattern: Big city career woman with secret longing for a simple life finds herself in a cute old fashioned town with good old fashioned values. She meets a handsome rugged salt-of-the-earth local, usually a widower with children. Complications ensue but she decides to ditch her old life behind, stay in the town, marry the local, and conform to his ways. Expect quirky locals, beautiful natural settings, a sob story about the couple in question, detailed Holiday seasons, and definitely a trip or two or three to church to remind you that yes these are Faith-driven locals. 

That's all present in Virtuous Women, but something seems off about it. The Wagners seem at first like a decent family albeit very strict. Some details like the kids being home schooled could be attributed to their Conservative upbringing. They seem to be in a community whose members genuinely look out for and communicate with each other. Michael might be stern but he is honest and appears free of religious hypocrisy. 

 In this fast paced world of immediate gratification, ever present technology, and gloomy and doom-driven news, it's understandable why someone like Jennifer would want to be a part of this life, especially someone like Jennifer.

Jennifer is the type of modern woman who has the past in a nostalgia filter. She reads Classic Literature and wears vintage clothing. She works as a nanny and secretly resents her employer’s affluent attention seeking lifestyle. Her career driven parents were more interested in obtaining wealth and status than parenting. She is the type probably much like many of her Readers, who would like to go into a time machine, travel to the past, and stay there. But her vision of the past is not the same as the reality.

There are some early red flags that suggest that life in this Church isn't all that was originally advertised. Those signs are designed to make the hair stand on the back of the mind and eyes narrow in suspicion wondering what Jennifer is getting herself into.

 There's an early moment where Hope is assaulted on her way home from grocery shopping and her father blames her for the attack. There is the moment where Jennifer enters the church wearing period clothing but one that is too ornate and showy for the plain clothes congregation. There are plans to marry Hope off right away to Joel, a young man who comes from another family of believers even though she's only 18 and her younger sisters are also preparing for their future weddings. One of the biggest warnings occurs after Jennifer uses her money to buy her future stepdaughter’s wedding dresses and Michael becomes furious and physically violent, accusing Jennifer of violating his commands as the man of the house. They are present and definitely can't be ignored. It doesn't take long for Jennifer to realize that she may have gotten the old fashioned life that she thought that she wanted but she also got all that came with it including Christian Nationalism and subjugation towards women.

Jennifer is an example of someone from the outside who stumbles into a cult where everything is new and fresh to her and all rules have to be explained. Since she is so new, she questions everything around her when her suspicions and concerns manifest themselves. She sees a patriarchal system where women are second class citizens. Where God's love and forgiveness is minimized and his judgemental wrath and punishment are emphasized. Where education is limited to only what the church allows to be taught and advancement is diminished for boys and practically non-existent for girls. Where distrust in the government is so high that they don't go to hospitals even if they're dying or seek welfare when they are starving. Where girls are raised solely to be wives and mothers and are ordered to breed lots of children and have no choice in the matter. Once Jennifer realizes the dangers that she has gotten herself into, she begins to look for a way out.

Jennifer may have been thrust into the Church of the Covenant but another character reveals the pain of having been born into it: Hope who, after Jennifer leaves the book, becomes the primary protagonist. She had been raised by her father and the Church and never knew any other life. Her brainwashing began so early that she doesn't acknowledge that's what it is. Every time she mildly questions her upbringing, slightly disagrees with the lessons being taught, or considers a career in midwifery, she believes that she is sinning and that she needs to pray and read the Bible to seek attrition. She isn't even allowed the freedom to disagree or think for herself in her own mind. Her father's church has her convinced that as a woman, she is a weak vessel who needs to be controlled and made submissive.

Those nagging worrisome doubts that came into Hope’s head and then disappeared come to surface with the arrival of Jennifer and her subsequent marriage to her father. Suddenly those doubts come in a human form that becomes a catalyst for Hope finding her own independence. She sees the life that she has complacently accepted as one that imprisons and restrains those within it. The seemingly charming old fashioned plot gives way to something darker, more sinister, and more realistic than the life Jennifer imagined and Hope lived with every day.

With such a savage take down of cults, I sort of expected the book to climax in a violent and bloodthirsty manner which resulted in the death of the cult. That is not actually what happens. The cult instead destroys itself. It is destroyed from within as young members grow up and break free from their programming and older members refuse to go beyond their rigid beliefs to accommodate and adapt to the changing world.  

The Wagner Family themselves implode as the children fall into early death, domestic violence, unwanted pregnancy, estrangement, elopement, and rebellion. Some leave and then come back penitent. Others settle into unhappy marriages in which they outwardly follow the values in which they were raised but now makes them inwardly miserable. They become aware that their rigid religious upbringing left them unprepared for the world and in many ways was responsible for the troubles in which they found themselves. 

The only way that some of the Wagner Children can receive any type of fulfillment and contentment is to leave the Church and their family and make a clean break from the way of life in which they were raised. 

Virtuous Women is the type of book that reminds us that religion can be a good thing in small doses but for all too many, it is used as a means of control and oppression. Sometimes the most courageous, faithful, and virtuous thing that a person can do is live outside of and out speak against it.

Gold Digger: The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor by Rebecca Rosenberg; Another Gold Standard Historical Women's Fiction By Rosenberg

Gold Digger: The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor by Rebecca Rosenberg; Another Gold Standard Historical Women's Fiction By Rosenberg

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

This book is available on Voracious Readers Only 

Spoilers: Rebecca Rosenberg has made a career of writing Historical Fiction novels about fascinating and captivating women whose names might have skipped under modern radars but who left lasting legacies in their time and in ours. Her previous work, The Champagne Widows series, captured Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin and Jeanne Alexandrine Louise Melin Pommery, two Frenchwomen whose business sense, marketing style, and resilience changed the wine industry forever. 

This time Rosenberg takes her writing talents to the United States and gives us probably her most captivating, controversial, and outstanding protagonist yet in Gold Digger: The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor. Elizabeth McCourt “Baby Doe” Tabor (1854-1935) was an interesting figure in Colorado history. A socialite, entrepreneur, and miner, Baby Doe managed to inspire controversy because of her willingness to work alongside the male miners and her scandalous second marriage to businessman and eventual Senator, Horace Tabor. 

Gold Digger covers a lot of ground in Baby Doe’s life from her first marriage to Harvey Doe, their move from Wisconsin to Colorado, the opening and backbreaking work at the mines particularly the Does’s Central City gold mine and Tabor’s Leadville Matchless silver mine, the controversies surrounding her divorce from Doe and marriage to Tabor, the rise of Leadville and Denver as big cities,the birth of her two daughters, Lily and Silver Dollar, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and the Panic of 1893 which wiped out the Tabor’s fortunes. It’s a tough life going from rags to riches back to rags again especially in the mining towns which became thriving metropolises but still had a lot of toes in the Old West Frontier Town “only the strong survive kill or be killed” mentality. 

Baby Doe is written as someone with a lot of strength, spirit, and independence. This is particularly noticeable when she works at the mine. She dresses in trousers and shirts and works with a pickaxe alongside the men (this incident is where the nickname, Baby Doe was coined).

 Despite many local women and Harvey’s objections, she continues to work. She is not someone who is afraid to get messy and do the hard supposedly unladylike work. These actions show her as resilient and more capable than many of the men around her, particularly her feckless first husband and emotional second husband.

That independent spirit is also revealed in Baby Doe’s stormy love life. When she learns that Harvey is spending time with prostitutes, she isn't afraid to chuck him out and file for divorce.

At times, Baby Doe acts very impulsively without thinking of the long term consequences. Her carelessness manifests itself during her affair with Harvey Tabor since it begins while he is married to his first wife, Augusta. Baby Doe is controversial enough as a divorcee but having an extramarital affair is enough to make her the subject of scorn and render her unacceptable to the growing Denver high society. 

Their affair culminates in Tabor's divorce and his and Baby Doe’s marriage but it does cause some long term ramifications during Tabor's run for Senate. Their financial difficulties are also augmented by Tabor’s former wife and estranged son who refuse to give them much needed aid because of the hurt that they still feel over Tabor and Baby Doe's actions.

Baby Doe’s adaptable nature is present during her second marriage. Once the hard-edged woman in men's clothes that worked in the mines, she transforms into a society matron. Though there are many who are still scandalized by the Tabor's affair and Augusta and her inner circle are quite combative, Baby Doe manages to acquire a good reputation. In the Gilded Age, nothing removes a stain on one's character faster than money and the Tabor’s use their silver mined wealth to their advantage. Baby Doe's fascination with beautiful clothes and the latest fashion make her a style icon. They also make Denver a cultural center by providing funds to open an opera house and host arts events. When she was poor, Baby Doe lived hard and tough. When she was rich, Baby Doe lived ostentatiously and provocatively. Either way, she was someone who left quite an unforgettable impression on those who knew her.

Rosenberg’s next book, Silver Echoes, is a sequel to Gold Digger. Presumably it is about Baby Doe’s daughter, Silver Dollar, who like her mother before her was pretty wild, had a controversial love life, and left quite an impression. If this book is any indication, both mother and daughter Tabor still have a lot to say and memorable stylish ways of saying them.

 

New Book Alert: To End Every War (Book One) by Raymond W. Wilkinson; Complex Occult Academia Feminist Fantasy of Female Friendship is the Best New Book of 2023

 

New Book Alert: To End Every War (Book One) by Raymond W. Wilkinson; Complex Occult Academia Feminist Fantasy of Female Friendship is the Best New Book of 2023

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Well the year is over. Time to close it and open the next one with a bang and a review of the best new book of 2023. That honor goes to Raymond W. Wilkinson’s To End Every War. It's a complex superb Occult Academia Feminist Fantasy novel about a group of women who represent different species in their world and are united for the common cause of building peace and stopping war between the various people and nations.

In 1901, Vespa Academy is the most prestigious and well respected university. Students all over their world attend alongside classmates and faculty of different species. There are Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Fairies, Selkies, Giants, Abraxas, Kitsunes, and Centaurs, to name a few. Many of the countries in which they come from are at war with each other and they all have a shared history of domination and oppression.

 During her first year at the Academy, Esmeralda, the Human Duchessa of Vespa is determined to do something about it. She arranges for four women from different species to be roommates to open up potential friendships and communication and to put an end to the various wars that surround them. After all, if people fear what they don't understand, then understanding is what needs to happen.

Besides Esmeralda, the potential roommates are: Viatrix Corna, a scholarly and devout Dwarf whose parents are professors at the Academy, Zabel Lusine, a quiet and mysterious Elf who is hiding various secrets from her past, Kirsi Takala, a wild Selkie (a water creature like a siren) who is struggling with her addictions, and Alya Panosyan, a serious minded and stern Abraxas (half person half-bull) who has spent much of her life fighting and isn't quite ready to lay down her weapons. Other characters also become important to this newly made quintet like Kamilla “Kam” Ruszo, a saucy Human/Fairy hybrid sophomore who is on academic probation, Bernie, Esmeralda’s loyal assistant, Violeta AKA Doppel, a look alike and spy for Esmeralda, Dina, Alya’s more reserved sister, Erna, a bullying Giant and Warden, and Snow, a naive Centaur. Through their tumultuous first academic year, these women study, attend classes, fall in love, learn things about their families and their world, suffer great loss, achieve mighty victories, and cultivate a deep friendship that changes all of them.

To End Every War is a strange combination of Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and Mary McCarthy’s The Group. It is an Epic Fantasy with amazing world building and wide sweeping plots. It is also a first rate Women's Fiction novel in which each character experiences personal struggles, challenges, and conflicts that changes their outlook and strengthens their bond with each other. 

Each character is masterfully explored as individuals and as a group. Not in some time have I read a novel about such a memorable team of friends and thought, “I wish that I could be one of them.” The lead seven characters: Esmeralda, Viatrix, Zabel, Kirsi, Alya, Kam, and Bernie are rich and vibrant in a way that transcends genres and makes these women relatable and identifiable to their modern day Readers. There is not a weak link in the chain. 

To illustrate the interconnectivity of the characters, Wilkinson inserts some clever narrative approaches. Incidents are repeated across chapters so each of the main female characters have different interactions and responses to the same events. 

One incident involves Esmeralda, the four future roommates, and Bernie meeting each other on the gondola that takes them to the Academy. They have some serious disagreements and a burst of magic caused by an unwilling Zabel stops their infighting. 

Another incident occurs during a school gathering when the protagonists are faced with various personal, familial, and political complications. It culminates in an assassination attempt and the discovery of a betrayal and a potential conspiracy.

These events are recalled by each character giving her own perspective based on her personality, experience, and biases. Their encounters reflect different emotions such as defensive, rational, anxious, irate, worried, curious, self-absorbed, preoccupied, confused or hopeful among others. It's rather like having several eyewitnesses giving their own accounts of the same event. You probably would have several different versions that describe the basic facts of the event but pepper it with their own assumptions and feelings about it. 

Say a two-car collision is seen by five people (including the two drivers). All will agree that two cars hit each other and the name of the street where the collision occurred but there will be five different versions of who hit who, the amount of damage, the trauma that occurred, and the emotional impact. 

The character’s different perspectives of the same events develops them as representatives of their separate homogeneous communities, students involved in a wider diverse community, and women who are questioning their societal roles, life goals, and separate identities.

The world building is detailed and sneakily subversive. Like many other fantasy works, To End Every War, has a map to provide visual information about the world. It's beautifully illustrated and looks very familiar. The outline depicts some recognizable features such as a large country in the east that covers almost that entire half, a chain of islands and a large peninsula to the north, and a boot shaped nation in the south. Yes, it's actually a refurbished map of Europe. That and the fact that the years are organized similar to how they are in the western world, during the school year of 1901-1902, suggest that To End Every War is not set on a completely new fantasy world, but an alternate version of Earth. Perhaps the time and place setting and the theme of countries in constant war is also a reflection of our history, specifically during the World Wars. Maybe the union of the female characters to work out their issues with communication and discussion rather than weapons and declarations echoes the real life formation of organizations like the League of Nations and United Nations.

It is also very important to note the academic setting of the book. It's no coincidence that the opening features several women leaving their individual countries to encounter each other on their way to college. Going to college is not just an educational experience as students use their studies and major to prepare for their chosen career and life trajectory. It is a social experience as they leave home, taste independence, meet other students and staff that are different from them sometimes for the first time, and become involved in important causes that they become passionate towards. 

In this new environment the characters have to spend a lot of time together, talking to each other, fighting, learning, and gaining a wider understanding. In meeting other people, the characters look at their old worlds and countries with less affection and unwavering loyalty. They recognize the flaws within their nations and how they contributed to the constant state of war that they have been in for generations. They also become aware of those who benefit and profit from the species’s division. They realize that in the various conflicts, their nations failed to unite against a real enemy that might be larger, hidden, and more powerful.

This is a wide sweeping Epic Fantasy with strong themes of developing connections across borders, obtaining knowledge and wisdom through learning and education, and achieving peace and strength through unity. To End Every War is also a strong Feminist novel about the importance of creating and developing a foundation of sisterhood. Vespa Academy is co-educational and there are plenty of male characters. In fact, many are paired off in the end (and the male characters are just as well written as the females). But this is definitely a woman's book. The female characters are the stars and are rich with nuances, development, and good writing. They embrace leadership opportunities within their species and cultures and are individualized by their personal journeys. 

The main characters have their previous world views shaken. In fact, what stands out is not the epicness of political infighting, magical quests, secret conspiracies, and sweeping battles. It's the individual journeys and internal changes that make the book. This is not an Epic Fantasy novel that happens to star female characters. It's a Woman's Fiction novel that happens to have an Epic Fantasy setting. Characters use magic and fight with weapons, but they also fall in love, attend class, fight with family members, and rely on each other for physical, mental, and emotional support.

As they go through these experiences, each character develops and changes. Esmeralda, an idealist, learns how to be an effective leader and future ruler for all people not just her own. Viatrix discovers some heartbreaking revelations about her family and the Dwarves in general that alters her once arrogant worldview. Alya learns that strength can be found in peace and to trust those she thought were her enemies. Kirsi makes an effort to get off of her self-destructive path and gains a more positive forward thinking outlook. Zabel reveals her troubled background and accepts assistance from her friends. Kam learns to reconcile and gain closure with the two halves of her heritage. Bernie steps out of Esmeralda's shadow and makes her own voice heard.

There are wonderful moments as the characters interact with each other strengthening their emotional ties. Viatrix is asked to be Kirsi’s minder, a task in which she is first unprepared but then results in a deeper understanding between the two. Alya and Zabel’s people are sworn enemies, but Alya helps Zabel through a mental breakdown. Kam uses her skills of sneaking around forbidden areas like the Academy’s Dark Library to find important information that will aid Esmeralda and the others. Esmeralda is very protective towards the other women. Bernie is the chronicler of this account and capture her friend's voices and actions out of love and friendship. The main characters in To End Every War are wonderfully written as striking individuals that form into a perfectly working team.

To End Every War combines the immense world building of an Epic Fantasy and the intimacy and emotional core of a Woman's Fiction novel to create a masterpiece that transcends both genres and inhabits one of its own.

New Book Alert: Kutri by Blake Rudman; On Danger, Beauty, and The Future of Reality Programming

 

New Book Alert: Kutri by Blake Rudman; On Danger, Beauty, and The Future of Reality Programming

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Between Dark Beauty and his latest work, Kutri, Blake Rudman knows that there can be danger found in great beauty. His previous book, Dark Beauty, was a psychological thriller about a pair of beautiful twin models turned actresses who take their rivalry to fatal proportions. Kutri shows a future in which women exist solely as objects of beauty by men who use a declining population as an excuse to dominate and control women.

In the future, a Slow Plague killed off millions of women and girls world wide severely depleting the future populations. Females are now a rare commodity and marriage is considered so highly desirable that the Powers That Be created a reality show (figures).called Good Breeding. Good Breeding’s premise is that women are recruited from all over the world selected for their appearance, intelligence, background, ethnicity, and anything to make them desirable to their future grooms. They are selected in a process that reeks more of a sleazy beauty pageant than any promise of eternal love and personal commitment.

Trouble begins when matchmaker Jakob Freeman recruits Kutri Chandigarh, who was selected because she is one of the few remaining female Punjabi around and matching race and ethnicities is very important. (Chandigarh is not even her surname. It was the place where she was found.) She seems really good on paper, so good that Jakob falls in love with her and vice versa.

Like most good science fiction dystopian writers, Rudman crafted interesting details about a world that is in decline. Women in this universe are treated as valuable rare commodities like gold or oil. They are put on pedestals and valued specifically for what they bring to marriage and breeding. Their appearance and abilities to bear children are their only means of collateral. While claiming to respect women to the point that crimes against women are punishable by death or dismemberment, this male dominated society objectifies women by depriving them of freedom or choice in their own destinies. 

Jakob works for The Studio, the real power in what used to be Los Angeles. What studio? It never says. More than likely in this day and age of studios merging and buying each other, it's quite possible that by Kutri’s time, they simply became one gigantic media and entertainment corporation.

 In a government  controlled by corporations in Kutri's world, is it any surprise that the one that openly controls California is an entertainment conglomerate? It is they who feature the Good Breeding series and they who decide which marriages will be arranged and how the population will grow under its tight rule. When entertainment and the arts becomes propaganda to promote the government instead of the channels in which to satirize, challenge, mock, argue against, or even question that same government, it loses its bite and becomes a means of control. It becomes something to fear instead of something to engage in, enjoy, and even escape into. 

Jakob and Kutri are the typical protagonists in this kind of science fiction novel. They are participants of a system that they don't always like but can do little about. Kutri agrees to be on Good Breeding because she has very few options. She was abandoned by her father and her Punjabi heritage makes her stand out. She knows that she is being sold and forced into marriage but it her choices are limited to either being owned in public or assaulted and possibly murdered in private. From the moment that she arrives in California, Kutri is constantly monitored and on the air. People study what she wears, what she eats, where she goes, and who she talks to so they can assess her potential as a bride. Despite the pampering and celebrity treatment that she receives, Kutri is always on, a prisoner of instant fame.

Jakob has his reasons to stay within this system because he literally cannot think of any other options. He is a widower and remembers how his wife died but nothing else about her: her appearance, personality, or even her name. He was given a modification chip inside his brain to forget everything about her except for the fact that he was once married. This chip also causes Jakob and other men to be unable to resist or act with violence towards the Studio and their representatives.

It is only after Jakob and Kutri start to develop feelings for each other, that they decide to actively rebel. In this process they meet other characters who also would like to see The Studio and the rest of these tyrants taken down.

The resistance has many faces and takes many forms. There's Jason's former partner, Sven, who collected memorabilia from the time before the Slow Plague (things like Pokemon cards, old cell phones, board games, acid free paper books, and vinyl records). There's Kirmi Teng, the previous groom who commits an act of violence live on air. There's Jimmy Ching, a pawn shop owner with his own secret connection to Jakob and Kutri. 

In one chilling chapter, the couple encounter the A&L Club, a private club for men who lost their appendages after being convicted of various crimes and now want to restore the right to divorce. Then there's La Vie, a group consisting mostly of former Good Breeding couples who are planning an all out rebellion in which the women will fight to free the other women from bondage and deactivate the chip from men's brains.

The resistors are various individuals and groups that have their own agendas for fighting the Studio. Some are more trustworthy than others and some show that just because they have the same end goal in mind, getting rid of this oppressive government, doesn't necessarily mean that they are good human beings. What they have in common is they want this oligarchy gone and will use any means necessary to achieve it.

Kutri is a sharp warning about the future where beauty is valued too highly, audience dependence on exploitation entertainment becomes destructive,  and love, friendship, and commitment are distant memories. It demonstrates that we have the ability to let our forms of entertainment destroy or save us.

New Book Alert: In The Hands of Women (A Gilded City Series) by Jane Loeb Rubin; Revealing Historical Fiction About Reproductive Rights Resonates In Modern Day

 

New Book Alert: In The Hands of Women (A Gilded City Series) by Jane Loeb Rubin; Revealing Historical Fiction About Reproductive Rights Resonates In Modern Day

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Some Historical Fiction novels are not necessarily about capturing the time period in which they are set. Well that's important as well. But they are written in response to current events. They show how these struggles started, why they are necessary, why people are still fighting for them, and why those who are against them fear accepting those rights. They remind us how far we have come and what still needs to be done.

It's hard to distance Jane Loeb Rubin’s novel, In The Hands of Women from the current events dealing with the controversies towards granting reproductive rights. It was certainly the nucleus of inspiration or at least a reminder of what was lost, gained, re-lost,and needs to be regained.

In the Hands of Women concerns Dr. Hannah Isaacson, an obstetrician and suffragist in 1900 Baltimore and New York City. This situation is dour as many do not take her seriously. Some midwives are even performing illegal and badly performed abortions which seriously hurt the patients more than help. When a close friend dies in childbirth, Hannah decides to take action. 

Hannah befriends Margaret Sanger, birth control advocate and founder of Planned Parenthood. Hannah joins Sanger on her crusade to provide contraceptives and safe early trimester abortions for patients, in defiance of the restrictive Comstock Laws. Unfortunately, after a patient that she is attending to dies from the results of a botched unsafe abortion, Hannah finds herself on trial for murder and is sent to the notorious Blackwell’s Island Prison.

In the Hands of Women has one foot set in the past and another foot set in the immediate present. The historical details of a female doctor's experience in the early 20th century are well written and researched. However, the themes are timeless and serve as a word of caution, a warning,maybe anger that we were not listening, and hope that we will.

Hannah's story is rich with details about the struggles that women had to go through (and some still do) to become and be taken seriously as doctors. Even though Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to obtain a medical degree in the United States in 1849, that was still a long way from accepting her younger successors into the medical establishment. Hannah is such an example.

Hannah is shoved to the sidelines by her male colleagues and is often mistaken for a nurse or a midwife. Many mock her ambitions and dismiss her medical advice. Even when her advice is proven right, either her colleagues take credit or the patient's husband or father downplay it.  Even Hannah's husband who was at one time supportive of her drive and career turns against her and ignores her when her alliance with Sanger lands her in prison and threatens his reputation.

The patients often have it worse. Many of Hannah’s patients are overlooked by male doctors because “everyone has babies.” Hannah isn't always called in unless the situation is dire and by then it is often too late.

Some of the patients are teenage or younger aged girls who have been raped. Some have trouble giving birth having difficult labors that could kill them. Patients have had one too many children and really don't want another one but their husbands insist and some have had miscarriages or stillbirths that are treated like abortions.

Because of the bad treatment from many of the medical professionals, these women often turn to herbalists and midwives who have had very little training, don't always know what they are doing, and are careless when it comes to saving lives. 

The book is filled with bloody surgeries, last minute life saving techniques, and terrified patients on their deathbeds or reduced to victims of PTSD because of the medical treatment. In one chapter, a woman undergoes a torturous abortion only to have a nervous breakdown and be institutionalized (and the mental health treatment is not any better so it is a certainty that she will continue to suffer). It is easy to see why Hannah wants to change things and while she and Sanger work to provide better reproductive care for women, why such a situation takes a long time to improve potentially not in Hannah's lifetime and certainly late into Sanger’s. When the entire  establishment is at fault, change can take several generations.

While this is a book about the past, it is also a call to action for the present. Even now women's reproductive rights are threatened as Roe V. Wade was overturned in several states (though the recent election has resulted in potential changes in that). Many businesses and individuals question paying for contraceptives, wanting to end not only the means to terminate a pregnancy but the means to prevent it in the first place. Planned Parenthoods are forced to charge for services, threatened by demonstrators, and even forcibly shut down so cis and trans women can't always get the proper inexpensive health care that they need. The bad old days from In The Hands of Women are unfortunately not far behind us and could be in the immediate future if we are not vigilant.

In The Hands of Women is less of a historical fiction novel than it is simultaneously a savage look over what happened in the past when reproductive rights weren't granted and a warning of the potential dark future that could happen if they are denied once more.

Weekly Reader: Weep, Woman, Weep by Maria DeBlassie; Female Driven Dark Fantasy Takes on La Llorona

Weekly Reader: Weep, Woman, Weep by Maria DeBlassie; Female Driven Dark Fantasy Takes on La Llorona

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: The legend of La Llorona is one that is frequently recounted in Mexico and the American Southwest. The legend is about an indigenous Mexican woman, usually named Maria, who fell in love with a Spanish conquistador or vaquero. They became lovers, married, and she gave birth to two children. One day, Maria caught him with another woman and in a rage drowned her children. Consumed with guilt, she drowned herself. She is then cursed to roam the Earth forever to find her children. Her ghost is usually heard wailing from grief and is seen dressed in a wedding gown and veil. The story goes that if she is seen and heard by water, someone, usually a child or a young single woman, will later drown. 

La Llorona's story has been told in art, books, movies, music, and various tv series. She is one of those fantastic characters from American myth and legend that has entered the national lexicon like Bigfoot, the Ghostly Hitchhiker, the Jersey Devil, Champ the Lake Champlain's monster, The Bell Witch and others. 

Some have interpreted her story as a criticism of colonialism with the Spanish conquistador controlling the indigenous La Llorona and leading to her death. Others have interpreted it to be a feminist tale of a woman drowning by the patriarchy around her. It is an interesting story and opens up many possibilities of what it means and says a lot about the culture that it comes from and the people telling it.

Weep, Woman, Weep by Maria DeBlassie gives her interpretation of the legend from the point of view of two Mexican-American women who are afraid of but at the same time drawn to this mysterious ghost.

Two women, Mercy and Sherry, live in a small desert town in New Mexico near Esperanza. They are dealing with the challenges of puberty and exploring their sexuality while discussing the legend that haunts them.

In this version of the legend, the women who La Llorona drowned don't die. Instead, they become shells of themselves, docile, obedient, God fearing, and submissive women. Mercy thinks of it not as a "drowning but a baptism." Things get worse when as an adult, Sherry is the next woman to go through this odd transformation. Could Mercy be next?

Mercy is the first person narrator and it's clear that she is a woman in great pain and filled with anger. She is surrounded by poverty, domestic violence, and a strict patriarchal society. Sherry has no idea who her father is and often keeps away from her alcoholic mother and her pedophiliac boyfriends. Mercy's father abused and walked out on her and mother, causing her mother to retreat into depression. It's a sad existence in which Mercy and Sherry just survive and dream of better things like marrying rich and wealthy men, traveling, having great careers, and living in big beautiful houses.

They live such dysfunctional lives that when they see Sherry's aunt and her boyfriend, they are surprised that he doesn't beat her. Instead, he kisses her. They have never seen an adult couple act loving and affectionate towards each other in public, even rarely at home.

Mercy tells her story with a dry cynicism that displays a world weary humor. She describes Esperanza as a place "where you went when you want to be forgotten by the place you came from." Her interpretation of the La Llorona story is that the spirit "regretted giving up her power to a man. And she regretted being bested by him….Instead all he brought her was more shame."

Of the women who had been transformed by La Llorona, Mercy describes them as "Jesus loving self-righteous prigs who called themselves Spanish-the closest thing to white they could be ... .Their eyes were forever red rimmed like they'd been crying though they never did. That's because their hearts stopped once they were baptized, and feelings were left at the bottom of the river along with their souls." 

Mercy and Sherry try to avoid being seen or taken by La Llorona, but constantly talk about her. Mercy does everything that she can to not transform like the other women around her do. She makes a blood pact with Sherry that they won't be like the other women. Mercy works on a farm because she is a hard worker and also to take on seemingly "masculine" work to make herself less likely to become one of La Llorona's victims. 

It's significant in this version that those that are taken by La Llorona do not die. Instead, this is more interpreted as a living death, the death of the women's personalities and individuality. 

La Llorona is a metaphor for the patriarchal society in which Mercy and Sherry live. The women's transformation causes them to be willing participants in the system around them. They are like Stepford clones deprived of their thoughts and independence. 

There's a possibility that La Llorona isn't real and is the product of a developing mind filled with PTSD from her abused past and anxiety about womanhood in such a restricted situation. After all, since the women's transformation is described as a baptism, it could be a reflection of Mercy's feelings towards religion, particularly Christianity, and the limitations towards women when they follow such dogma. They go to church, get baptized, and conform to the patriarchal society surrounding them. 

As she matures, Mercy has few options: allow La Llorona to take her and conform, retreat into depression, alcoholism, and defeat like hers and Sherry's mother, or live an independent life. In retaliation against the spirit and the patriarchy around her, Mercy opts for independence.

Mercy lives on a farm outside of town that she runs herself. She makes herbal and homeopathic medicines and health and beauty aids. The price that she has to pay for rebelling against the society around her is to live outside of it. She is referred to by the locals as a "spinster, "whore," and "witch" (which she wonders how someone can be described as both a whore and a spinster). Mercy lives a lifetime of solitude knowing that La Llorona (or her fears and anxieties) is out there waiting for her to drown. She also tries to maintain her friendship with Sherry even though they have emotionally grown apart and Sherry is in an unhappy marriage with an abusive philanderer. She leaves gifts and words of strength and encouragement. 

In trying to live her life to spite La Llorona, Mercy ends up living her life more authentically than most other women around her.

Weep, Woman, Weep transforms the legend of La Llorona into a feminist novel of women who are given the option of falling into the patriarchy or turning away from it and be themselves.

 

New Book Alert: Fool, Anticipation by Robert Polakoski; Brilliant Historical Fiction About a Woman's Exploration of Her Talent and Sexuality

 New Book Alert: Fool, Anticipation by Robert Polakoski; Brilliant Historical Fiction About a Woman's Exploration of Her Talent and Sexuality 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: It doesn't need to be said how appropriate it is to review a historical fiction about a lesbian poet struggling against restrictive gender roles and the lack of understanding towards her sexuality. It doesn't need to be said how SCOTUS' boneheaded, archaic, self-serving, underhanded, homophobic and misogynistic decisions to overturn Roe Vs. Wade, protections towards same sex marriages and gender affirming care, and recently permission for people to use religious freedom as an excuse to deny services, goods, and care to LGBTQ+ people make a book like Robert Polakoski's Fool, Anticipation even more relevant. (And that ending Affirmative Action and not legacy acceptances and hiring practices shows their true racist colors, mostly white, as well). It doesn't need to be said that such rulings and laws created and encouraged by Conservatives, especially Fundamentalists, are set to roll back women and LGBT+ people's statuses and protection back several centuries (or worse forward to Handmaid's Tale's Gilead). None of that needs to be said but it's being said anyway. Fool, Anticipation by Robert Polakoski is a book with a character who says all of that and more. It is a brilliant historical fiction about a woman who explores her talent and sexuality to find her own voice and independence.

Like with many Historical Fiction novels, we start with the protagonist, now older, looking back on their lives, perhaps writing or dictating their memoirs. In this case, poet Edna Rose Doyle is being interviewed by a reporter for a French publication. She gives some interesting hints that her life was a troubled one before we get to the narrative proper.

Rose Doyle was born in Jersey City to an Irish-American family given to abuse and alcoholism. To escape her unhappy home life, Rose turns to poetry, particularly that of Edna St. Vincent Millay. In fact, Millay becomes such an ideal that Rose calls herself Edna in the poet's honor. She wants to live her life the way Millay did, openly flaunting female lovers, writing frank and honest poems about sex, war, and social injustice, and living in Greenwich Village surrounded by other artists, writers, and intellectuals. 

Edna ends up working at Great Eastern Electric as a telephone tester during WWII. After the war ends, she and a few female friends go out for a few drinks when she encounters Tommy Prosky. Edna and Tommy have differing opinions about the war (Tommy was for, Edna against) but go on a second date. It is on this second date where Tommy rapes Edna, leaving her pregnant.

The pregnancy leaves Edna devastated and is left even more devastated when a doctor refuses to give her an abortion. She has a brief affair with another woman, Elle Rochfort before Edna returns to the reality of her situation and is forced to marry Tommy and endure an unhappy marriage rocked by abuse, addiction, and a mental breakdown.

Edna's intelligence and sardonic nature really shine through in her first person narration. I cannot stress this enough how well written this female perspective is, especially considering that Fool, Anticipation was written by a man. Polakoski captures the complexities of this character and makes her identifiable and understandable as she questions her life, sexuality, and place in the world as a woman of deep intellect and desires that society tells her that she should not have.

Edna has a definite idea of how she imagines her life. During adolescence, she stood outside the home of Millay, imagining herself as a poet surrounded by arty intellectuals, writing verses about how she really feels, and taking female lovers openly. However, the dreams are dashed by reality. She sends poems to publications that are rejected (though she admits that she is happy to even receive a rejection letter). At 19, she gets accepted to Vassar on a scholarship and saves money for the opportunity, but her rape, pregnancy, and quickie marriage end that plan.

On her jaunts to New York, Edna looked outside the Women's Literary Society,  longed to be a part of it, and also saw Elle looking at her through a window. She would have loved to enter the society and have a relationship with Elle but knew that society would never allow such a pairing. Ironically, during one of the lowest points of her life after her rape, Edna works up the courage to introduce herself to Elle. The two women have a very passionate and emotional night that could have meant that they were lovers and soulmates. Unfortunately, it only lasts for one night but sustains Edna through the loneliness of her marriage that she still thinks of and dreams about Elle.

Edna's sarcasm is never in doubt. When she compares herself to her female coworkers, she realizes how different her aspirations are from her friends. "It did bother me some that I wasn't like them," she said. "What they wanted was a man so simple and so obtainable. What I wanted-a woman-seemed so out of reach. I even confess to being a bit jealous on Monday morning, listening to (her other co-workers) discuss all the guys that they met while I spent my weekends staring furtively at women in storefront windows in Greenwich Village." Like Dorothy Parker, Edna uses her sarcasm, self -deprecating humor, and wisecracks to cover up her insecurities and vulnerabilities.

Sometimes Edna's narration shows an older woman discovering other things with the virtue of hindsight. For example, when she seeks the abortion she reflects that even though technically illegal, it was widely known and practiced in the 1930's. ("Everybody knew someone who could give one or knew someone who knew someone who could give one.") However, when Edna tries to get hers in 1945, she is a victim of the Baby Boom push.The goal of producing more babies to create good little Americans. Being someone who is fervently anti-war, Edna seethes at the hypocrisy of a government that didn't care if Japanese children were napalmed or atom bombed to death (and certainly didn't care enough about Jewish children to accept them into the country or African American children that they kept them separated from white children) and are now on their soapboxes about protecting the "Sanctity of Life." (It really makes you look at the Baby Boom differently). With a lifetime of reading and studying history, Edna understands the circumstances and far reaching regulations about why she was put in such situations that affected her individually.

That elderly voice also shows why the people around her acted the way that they did. She doesn't like them any better but she recognized people like her mother and Tommy had circumstances and standards that they had to live up to and led to the choices that they made for themselves and Edna. 

Her mother for example was in an abusive marriage and after her death was unable to survive on her own, so retreated into drink. She also had a sister Flossie who, like Edna, was raped and left pregnant so she was sent to the Magdalene Laundries (a deplorable institution in which so-called "fallen women" prostitutes, women who were raped or victims of incest, or the mentally ill worked in laundry facilities for mere pennies and were subjected to torture and abuse). Edna's mother is told what women are supposed to do to maintain respectability and she forces that thinking on her daughter. However, her mother does show some maternal kindness with her grandson, Tommy Jr.bonding with him in a way that Edna is unable to.

Tommy is also seen as victimized by societal expectations of men. A childhood bout with polio left him disabled and unable to serve in the military. Because of this, he is desperate to prove his masculinity and virility. He deals with desperation by doing violent and unconscionable things. Shortly before he rapes Edna, soldiers make fun of his disability. He also tries to prove his status as a wage earner by not only being a police officer, but a corrupt police officer who is on the take so he can earn more money. He has been told what a man should be and has completely given into the toxic masculinity image (even before it was an actual thing). He later confesses to Edna that he likes seeing shopkeepers and citizens fear him when he takes their money.

Edna's emotions are expressed most thoroughly through her poetry. Throughout the plot, Edna offers a poem that expresses her inner thoughts and conflicts reflecting her real feelings for a situation contradicting how she outwardly behaved during that time. For example, during her wedding to Tommy, she daydreams stopping the show with a zinger and walking off leaving everyone stunned. Instead, she meekly acquiesces to this no-win situation.

However, her poem "The Prisoner" shows what she really thinks about this not so joyous occasion:

"So Tommy married me and,

Obliterated from history

Washed from the shores of time 

Like a tide, passing

No mention is made again 

Of his rape

Except by me…"

Edna's poetry is confessional, similar to the works of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Edna's mental and emotional states become worse after her son, Tommy Jr. Is born. She doesn't feel bonded to him because he is the child of her rapist and keeps her attached to him. She is clearly suffering from postpartum depression and has no one to confide in except her poetry.

Shortly after Tommy Jr. is born, she writes "What Truth Gives" reflecting about how the truth is skewered about why children are born and how his birth makes her even more disconnected from life:

"What is lost

What is gained

When truth obscured

From view

Becomes a tool to use,

Or a drug to take

That makes

What a wish to see

Or hear,

Or know,

Go away…"

As her marriage and motherhood drags on and weighs her down, Edna's mental and emotional state continues to deteriorate. When she first discovers Tommy's kickback money she compulsively shops for things like wrapping paper, rubber bands, and other useless items. She has vivid frightening dreams like the Hiroshima bombing, being surrounded by American soldiers that congratulate her on adding to America's plan, and her father hovering over her like a specter. She gets pregnant a second time after having a terrifying flashback when Tommy startles her, reminding her of her rape. She miscarries and feels like she is being punished. 

All of these feelings are cast aside for the "new normal" of post-war prosperity. Edna is so disconnected from her life that she can't feel anything when her friend gets married to a nice guy. Not surprisingly, Edna falls right into the Feminine Mystique "Problem That Has No Name" that Betty Friedan spoke of. She is prescribed and becomes dependent on Oxycodone and later speed.The addiction only fuels her depression, loneliness, and paranoia. She hallucinates arguing with the housewives on TV and has continuous mood swings that last for days. She overdoses, eventually collapses, and is institutionalized.

Edna's institutionalization is terrifying as she is forced to recount many troubling aspects of her past like her rape and childhood trauma that finally resurfaces. However, it ends up helping her and becomes the first step of living a fulfilled life. She realizes that she is as much to blame as her mother and Tommy are for her mental state because she let her fears and insecurities get in the way of living a life for herself.

She is encouraged to write. In that time she realizes that she found her poetic voice. She writes the poem that becomes her greatest success, "Fool, Anticipation."

"Fears 

On a glacier or a tide

Ride away your dreams

They say goodbye

To the life you thought you'd lead

Fool, anticipation

Now there's only dreams

Of what there could have been 

Of what there might have been

And the fear and anger

All directed at him

You didn't get a chance…"

Even though she reunites with Elle before her hospitalization, Edna reconnects with her afterwards and allows herself to have a real relationship with her, one without her fears, emotional baggage, and societal standards getting in the way. She eventually finds the courage to make a clean break from her old life and make way for a new one.

Edna finally has the keys to change her life and become the person that she was meant to be: a talented and published poet, an intellectual surrounded by artists and freethinkers, a lesbian in a loving relationship, and an independent strong free spirited woman unafraid of life.