Maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate the author’s creative decisions regarding how she sets the story up, which unfolds entirely from a man's point of view.

Maybe it was my fault for bringing this to read on vacation (lol, what was I thinking). However it did seem interesting, and given all the buzz surrounding Toews’ book and the fawning recommendations for it all over the internet, I was excited to dive in and meet the complex female characters at its center. It was so nightmarish it didn’t seem real. I did a quick look into the story, and could barely stomach the fact that the inspiration for this novel came from a near-identical event around 2010 in Bolivia, where a group of women living in an isolated Mennonite community discover that a number of men in their village have been drugging and sexually assaulting them at night, with some of the victims being small children. I desperately wanted to like Women Talking, which I picked up after seeing it was recently adapted into a film by Sarah Polley, with a phenomenal cast attached (Claire Foy, Frances McDormand, Jessie Buckley, and Ben Whishaw, among others). well, if not interesting, at least unique. You can tell Toews is a gifted writer, and I found her approach to the narrative. I’m happy that the novel shines a light on the heartbreaking, horrifying real-life story of these women, and I think a lot of the themes and ideas discussed within are especially interesting when viewed through the prism of the #MeToo movement. Reading Women Talking by Miriam Toews left me with a lot of mixed feelings. And I have arrived at an answer: pacifism.” “I have done what the verse from Philippians instructed, which is to think about what is good, what is just, what is pure, and what is excellent.

Women talking by miriam toews