My Five Word TL:DR Review: Not for the faint hearted

I’m very much enjoying this author at the moment and although, I own up that this wasn’t my favourite book by him, it was a compelling read.  I will just say that this is a little bit harrowing in parts and also possibly triggering for some people.

Set during a sweltering summer in the 1970s this story takes a good long look at the treatment meted out to young girls who found themselves compromised (pregnant).  This was an age where a girl that becomes pregnant is a source of deep shame, a ‘thing’ to be hidden away until the pregnancy is over and the baby adopted.  Then they can return home and never speak of ‘it’ again.  Fifteen year old Neva (soon to be known as Fern) is one such girl.  Driven to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida by her father she is to be secreted away until her pregnancy reaches its natural conclusion.  Neva’s father is livid with his daughter to the extent he doesn’t even wish her goodbye after depositing her.

The other girls at the home are of varying ages and stages of pregnancy and Fern soon becomes firm friends with a few of the others.  Life at the home is dull.  The girls are expected to clean and wash the house itself, they don’t receive any education and most of their time is spent watching old films and playing cards.  Their food is monitored and dietary restrictions imposed to control weight etc.  Basically, they have no say or control of anything that is happening either to or around them and they’re kept in the dark about everything.

Fern is a keen reader and looks forward to the arrival of the mobile library.  This is when things start to spice up a little, the girls find themselves in possession of a witch’s spellbook, a grimoire if you will, and when they achieve success with their first attempt at casting a hex they start to think of other ways that the book can help during their incarceration.

What I really liked about this is, first and foremost, the writing.  Hendrix writes in such a way that you’re almost immediately hooked and although at first I began to wonder if this was going to include any ‘witching’ or fantasy aspects once our little coven eventually forms things escalated quite quickly.

I enjoyed the friendship between the girls and the way they ground each other.  It’s sad in a way that they had such high hopes, little realising just how very little real control they actually had.  They had their minor rebellions but at the end of the day they were children and the adults around them were capable of so much manipulation and lying to achieve their end goals.

To be fair, life at the home wasn’t abusive as such but the treatment they received at the hand’s of some of the adults was incredibly harsh and utterly judgemental.

If I had any little niggles it would probably relate to the witches and their portrayal.  In some respects I think this was handled really well, their lifestyle quite grim and constantly on the move to avoid detection, but, at the same time I think I would have preferred it if their aims had been more by way of helping the girls – rather than helping themselves.  Although, perhaps this is just a statement of fact in that all the adults involved were capable of manipulating these young women for their own gain and things did have a way of working out eventually.

Now, I mentioned above that some of this is harrowing – and I’m not joking.  There are a couple of quite explicit ‘birthing’ scenes that might not be for everyone.  Also, some of the ‘sacrifices’ that the girls were required to make to pay the price for their witching was also particularly gruesome.  You have been warned.

All told, this was a quick read, I was hooked almost instantly and was keen to discover what was going on, I was even more intrigued to discover how things would pan out and in that respect the ending is both what you would expect and at the same time a little bittersweet.  Some definite food for thought here though and I’ve found myself thinking of this often since completing it.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 4 of 5 stars