A teenage girl must come to terms with her haunting past and mundane future.
The book opens “somewhere in the Catskill Mountains,” as 13-year-old Talia is forcibly removed by the police from the mystical community of women where she was raised and sent to live with her estranged aunt and cousins. Adjusting to the outside world proves challenging for Talia, who has spent most of her life in the wilderness, growing up in an abandoned hotel called the Neves alongside a group of women who were scarred by unimaginable cruelty. At 16, Talia still yearns to contact her imprisoned mother despite their complicated relationship and struggles to connect with her family and classmates. Her ultimate goal is to return to the Neves and reunite with the women who raised her. Told in alternating timelines, the narrative weaves together Talia’s childhood memories and her present-day struggles. Talia reflects on the systemic inhumanity women face, uncovering the events that drove her mother to flee society. These themes echo in the experiences of her cousin Lake, whose story parallels Talia’s mother’s. The prose is poetic and haunting, though the plot occasionally feels thin, relying heavily on Talia’s introspection. However, her evolving relationship with Lake is particularly compelling, offering a nuanced exploration of what it means to believe women. Talia and her mother’s family are Jewish; there’s some racial diversity in secondary characters.
Feminist and captivating.
(Fiction. 14-18)