I have socks that say “I’m Not for Everyone” for a reason.

84. The Women Could Fly – Megan Giddings

I truly enjoyed this story, it’s about a lady who doesn’t want to get married, but she’s in a dystopian world where witches are real-real and women have to get married by 30 and have to register and be monitored for signs of witchcraft escaping them like they’re nuclear reactors with coolant leaks. Jo is not into any of that. Same.

There are also some women who admit they’re witches and then they’re essentially regulated and sometimes get gallery shows apparently. And in Jo’s dwindling set of options there is a mystery that might lead her somewhere else – her mother’s disappearance fourteen years ago and the will her mother left behind which sort of indicates that she was not murdered…she may have made it to a legendary island.

Jo is a difficult character at times, and this book, like making life choices against the grain of society, is not for everyone. However, it is hard to find stories of single women where being married is not the desired goal on any level through the whole story. The whole story. And the prose here sings. It is a bit of a song of pain and misunderstanding and pushing back against both systems of power and yourself though. It’s for the women who can’t put aside who they are and don’t want to anyway.

 

Merricat doesn’t believe in women who put aside who they are, those can’t exist.