"The Women Could Fly"

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings

Pages: 227 Genre: dystopian

Rating: 3.5 Stars

In a world where witches are real, unusual or out-of-line behavior from a woman (especially a Black woman) can be dangerous. In this book, Josephine Thomas has grown up being taunted for her mother's potential witch status — after she disappeared, the rumors went flying. Fourteen years after her mother's disappearance, though, Josephine is trying to move forward. But with the marriage deadline of 30 looming, her 28-year-old self is uncertain of what her future holds. So when she is charged with honoring a request from her mother's will, she takes the opportunity to see what else could be out there for her.

I liked this book. It took me a while to read because I felt like the actual writing tended to drag a little bit, but that's not to say it was badly done. I hate to compare them, but the style reminded me a bit of 1984 (which I also really enjoy, despite thinking it tends to drag at times).

Books where the premise is "all women are X" or "all men are Y" tend to make me nervous, as they can very easily slide in TERF territory. However, I think this book handled that quite well. The anti-witch rhetoric in the book doesn't just hold onto misogyny, but the effects of a patriarchal society on everyone. It doesn't hide behind whiteness or straightness to make a vague and exclusionary point about feminism, which is not uncommon for books of this type. Not that this is too shocking: Giddings herself is Black, and Josephine is Black and queer.

The social commentary was very powerful. I liked the explorations on love, family, and community in the face of oppression and hardship. Dystopian novels are meant to pull from things in the real world, and I think this book did that really well. It was easy to see our reality reflected in Josephine's, and it made the experience of reading The Women Could Fly very powerful.

One of my main complaints for this book would be that the pacing wasn't too great. It felt like we were rushing through a little bit. This wasn't a huge issue, but I would've liked to dwell a little bit more. Especially once we get to the middle part of the book; it started to feel like we were just being told the important things instead of being allowed to feel it.

That being said, I did think this book was really good. If you like more contemplative dystopian books, I think you would enjoy it too. Although it is short, it's more substantial, so it's not one that I would recommend trying to get through quickly. But if you're interested in a contemporary look at the intersections of race, femininity, and love, then I think you should give this book a shot.