Red Clocks

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Other areas of personal interest that the author explores in the text (not always successfully) include: Unmarried persons will be legally prohibited from adopting children. In addition to valid marriage licenses, all adoptions will require approval through a federally regulated agency, rendering private transactions criminal.” To adopt from China, your body-mass index must be under 35, your annual household income over eighty thousand. Dollars. It's a book about what makes a family and it is saying you need two adults to have a child. It also talks about the rights of the ity bity baby in its first few weeks of being conceived and the new law that protects that baby. I am a Christian and am for life so I agreed with the law in this story. But when you take something away that is in the 'light' and is safe for the woman, it then becomes done in the dark and with that comes danger. You can't stop people from having sex but maybe there should be more emphasize on protection during the act. But none of us are perfect and we need to love and forgive ourselves and others.

As the author has also remarked in interviews “There’s so much … cultural, familial or actual policy regulation around women’s bodies” and the book brings this out – for example much of the pressure Ro faces is from her father and from her friends. Opinion: Pregnant, and No Civil Rights (New York Times: 2014) Related to the creation of an unlikely class of criminals. The "i-would-nevers" sometimes find us in unexpected ways. Abortion is an understandably emotional issue, but it's important to objectively think about all the implications of laws. Are the trade-offs worth it? Are there better ways to reach the intended goals? Well, good. It’s a hard world.”“We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching.“We are the dinosaurs. We make the earth flat!” Overall this was a much more complex book than I had expected – at times I think trying to do too much, but certainly impressive for its ambition. Short of sex with some man she wouldn’t otherwise want to have sex with, Ovutran and lube-glopped vaginal wands and Dr. Kalbfleisch’s golden fingers is the only biological route left. Intrauterine insemination. At her age, not much better than a turkey baster.

I could go on, and on, and on, and on about this book, but really the most important thing I can say is that this is now an all-time favorite. It is absolutely brilliant, and I expect to see it not only on "Best Books of the Year" lists, but also "Best Books of the Decade." It's that good. This novel is outstanding! I have not read another book like this. Yes, it’s feminist—in the sense that these women rule their own lives within the confines of the law. Yes, it’s dystopian—in the sense that these same laws are not in effect in the United States today. But, this story was the most realistic dystopian novel I’ve ever read.

We see this story unfold through the eyes of four women, The Biographer – Ro, who is writing a book about Eivør Mínervudottír, The Daughter – Mattie, a student, adopted, with dreams of attending an esteemed math school finds herself pregnant around the time her boyfriend has moved on to another girl, The Wife – Susan, whose thoughts are about her dissatisfaction with her life, her marriage, the distance she feels between what she has and what she wants, and The Mender – Gin, a woman who the townspeople think of as a bit of a hermit who might be a witch, a woman who lives alone in the forest and provides “cures” for ailments and assorted other troubles, for those who come seeking. I think for my entire writing life and into the future I will be writing about female friendships and female relationships. That's one of my core interests. That bond between women is so layered, so thorny, and can be really supportive and really competitive at the same time.”Gross descriptions of body parts and fluids - Of all the things I have the stomach to read, it's descriptions of body fluids and hair that make me retch. I'm fine with a few scenes ( White Bodies), but it makes my skin crawl when it's threaded throughout the whole book: wet "scabbards," glistening" fingers, and SO MUCH pubic hair. (Helpful hint: If you have similar issues, avoid the movie Don't Breathe! I still gag thinking about it!) All in all, this novel *is* a what-if. It says nothing more than what I already believe, that women should not have to suffer, either economically or legally or socially, for the desire NOT to be saddled with a real and true burden. Not unless they're able and willing to take care of said burden.

As a novel, however, it's okay. I might have liked it better if the more fascinating Biographer had an actual name. A lot of the details of the characters' lives were more interesting than their Roles would have them be. Is it on purpose? Undoubtedly. Did it work the way it should have? Not sure, but I'm leaning toward no. The bulk of the book is set in a small Oregon coastal town and told from the alternating third party viewpoint of four characters – who in their own chapters are given a label but who are named in the other characters’ chapters. I enjoyed the novel’s unique structure including the interludes of the biographer’s novel. The character development is excellent. The more I read, slowly but surely, the more I became invested in each character. I love that you start out just knowing these women’s roles in society rather than their names, but over the course of the story, you learn who they are and how they connect to one another. Leni Zumas’s fierce, well-formed, hilarious, and blisteringly intelligent novel [is] squarely a piece of Trump-era art." The women in this suspenseful book resist.They will not be circumscribed. The effect on the reader is cathartic.”Two years ago the United States Congress ratified the Personhood Amendment, which gives the constitutional right to life, liberty, and property to a fertilized egg at the moment of conception. Abortion is now illegal in all fifty states. Abortion providers can be charged with second-degree murder, abortion seekers with conspiracy to commit murder. In vitro fertilization, too, is federally banned, because the amendment outlaws the transfer of embryos from laboratory to uterus. (The embryos can’t give their consent to be moved.) I loved the interactions between the characters. How these characters see each other through their own wants and desires. How the childless Ro quietly seethes at the mother in Susan and yearns at the possibility in Mattie. Wrestling between her own self-interest and what Mattie needs. How Gin, the healer in the woods is understood by the women in the community. Those moments really shine for me. My main problem were the characters that often felt underdeveloped and not particularly fleshed-out. As they are often refered to by a descriptor (“the mother”, “the daughter” etc.) this was probably on purpose: these things that are happening do not happen to these women because of who they are but rather because of the way the social structure is set up. Intellectually, I get, emotionally, I did not care for their stories at all. There was a large chunk in the middle that did not work for me because of that distance. I do think that the storylines converged nicely in the end and that the character development if slight did work. So I found it very useful to read in detail what the author said about this aspect of the book, which also brings out the autobiographical elements of the book:

Each of the main four are dealing with womanhood issues that are threatened by the new laws. Ro's perspective is easily the most palatable, though we still have to sit through a vaginal exam that unfolds like this:I definitely did not start with political themes in mind. What I started out with were characters and particularly the idea of female friendship and all the ways it can be burdened by either envy or competition or difference or just having different experiences and not being able to share them” Witches – Gin’s trial is a modern version of a Salem Witch trials. Apparently at one stage pre-editing the link was going to be much stronger (with actual transcripts used) but even still I found some elements a little unbelievably given the near alternative future in which the world was set – for example a large part of the hostility to Gin seems to stem from her being blamed for the reappearance of some harmful-to-fishing seaweed. On January fifteenth—in less than three months—this law, also known as Every Child Needs Two, takes effect. Its mission: to restore dignity, strength, and prosperity to American families. Unmarried persons will be legally prohibited from adopting children. In addition to valid marriage licenses, all adoptions will require approval through a federally regulated agency, rendering private transactions criminal. (c) She did not leave behind money or property or a book or a child, but her corpse kept alive creatures who, in turn, kept other creatures alive. Into other bodies she went, but also other brains." - There are multiple ways our legacy lives on, not just through the passing of genes.