Sour Cherry

by Natalia Theodoridou

Something terrible has happened.

In a mysterious apartment filled with ghosts, our unnamed narrator attempts to explain this to her child - how do I talk about this? she wonders.

The truth must become something beautiful. We must begin with a fairy tale.

And so she begins to construct a beautiful fairy tale for her child - one that begins with a strange baby boy whose nails grow too fast and whose skin smells of soil. As he grows from a boy into a man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. Tragedy strikes in cycles - and wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. These ghosts call out desperately to our narrator as she tries to explain, in the very real world, exactly what has happened to her.

And they all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin.

If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay.

A debut novel as emotionally poignant as it is fiercely smart, Sour Cherry is an arresting debut examining toxic masculinity through its chorus of women - deconstructing the idea of what makes someone a monster.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Fantasy, Gothic, Retellings, Queer, LGBT

323 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2025

About the author

Natalia Theodoridou is a queer and trans writer of stories that exist in the interstices between literary and speculative fiction. He has won the 2018 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction and the 2022 Emerging Writer Award (Moniack Mhor & The Bridge Awards), and has been a finalist for the Nebula award in the Novelette and Game Writing categories. His stories have appeared in Kenyon Review, The Cincinnati Review, Ninth Letter, and Strange Horizons, among other publications, and have been translated into Italian, French, Greek, Estonian, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. He holds a PhD in Media and Cultural Studies from SOAS, University of London, and is a graduate of the Tin House and Clarion West writers’ workshops. An immigrant in the UK for many years, Natalia was born in Greece and has roots in Georgia, Russia, and Turkey. His debut novel, Sour Cherry, is coming from Tin House (North America) and Wildfire (UK) in April 2025. For more, visit www.natalia-theodoridou.com.

Reviews

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off as an intriguing retelling of bluebeard, but became tedious to read halfway through. With all the palpable tension and foreshadowing throughout the book, I was expecting a more climactic conclusion. Also found the writing to be a bit disjointed, especially with the constant shifting between past and present. While I appreciate the sentiment and message of the book, it’s a bit too muddled to leave a lasting impression on me

[Jillian B · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mother tells her child a highly stylized, fairy-tale-like fable about an aristocratic man with a pattern of marrying women and then killing them. All the while, we get the sense that something dramatic has just occurred in the family’s real life—and the story the mother is telling might contain clues.

This novel was absolutely gripping. It combines atmospheric dark cottagecore vibes with a serious message about domestic violence. The fairy tale and the “real world” story play off of each other beautifully, and the writing is stunning. I’m going to be thinking about this book for a long time!

[Constantine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Horror + Literary Fiction + Retelling

Sour Cherry falls into several different genres. It is a gothic horror and also a literary fiction. The book is also considered a combination of folklore retelling and magical realism. It is a retelling of Bluebeard, but I haven’t read the original tale, so I cannot compare the two.

The story follows Agnes, who, after losing her child at birth, is summoned to nurse one of the local lords’ infant sons in their manor. There are many creepy things about this child as he grows up. He seems to carry a plague with him wherever he goes. He brings bad luck, grim fate, and death. The worst thing is that even the women he gets involved with face a grim fate.

This book is so captivating with such an interesting premise. In the beginning, I was under the impression that this would be comparable to "The Omen," but the similarities were only slight. The story is heavier on gender issues and toxic masculinity, making it a truly thought-provoking book.

For a debut book, this beautifully written novel is a great start for the author. They mastered creating the right atmosphere and setting for the story. At times, readers might feel the story is a bit slow, but the emotional depth it offers completely compensates for any shortcomings. I liked it a lot.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC of this book.

[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Title/Author: Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou

Page Count: 312

Publisher: Tin House

Format: Paperback/Audiobook

Other Books I Enjoyed by This Author: new to me/first time
Bio: Natalia Theodoridou is a queer and transmasculine writer whose stories have appeared in venues such as Kenyon Review, The Cincinnati Review, Ninth Letter, and Strange Horizons, and have been translated into Italian, French, Greek, Estonian, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. He won the 2018 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction and the 2022 Emerging Writer Award by Moniack Mhor & The Bridge Awards, and has been a finalist for the Nebula award multiple times. He holds a PhD in media and cultural studies from SOAS, University of London. Born in Greece, with roots in Georgia, Russia, and Turkey, he currently lives in the UK.

Affiliate Link: https://bookshop.org/a/7576/978196310...

Release Date: April 1st, 2025

General Genre: Retelling/Reimagining, Gothic, Folklore

Sub-Genre/Themes: Dark fairytales, magical realism, marriage, curses, plague, murder, ghosts, man-beast, folklore, family violence, domestic trauma, parenting

Writing Style: Multiple POVs, a choir of voices, dark humor, parable style, unnamed first person narrator

What You Need to Know: I used my Libro FM credit to listen to the audiobook. Sometimes I read my physical copy and listened at the same time. Here's a link if you want to know more about Libro FM
"Agnes is called to nurse the local lord’s son, but something is wrong with him -- a plague follows him through his life, as every woman he touches becomes a ghost, and the ghosts call to the narrator as she explains what has happened to her in the real world."

My Reading Experience: Sour Cherry is a reimagining of Bluebeard, a French folktale about a rich lord who can’t stop murdering his wives, and what his present wife does to avoid falling into the same fate.
I binged this audiobook in two days. All I wanted to do was listen to it and become fully absorbed in the story of these women who find themselves married to a monster who is a curse--not only to violently end the lives of the women he marries, but a curse on the land and the townspeople where he lives--forced to move around to escape angry mobs of people who discover he is the cause of all their misery.

The format is that of a linear timeline of events with nested stories within the main tale. So, the unnamed narrator is giving a history of Bluebeard's wives as she makes her way to her final tale which is her own. This narrator tells the stories of Bluebeard's many wives and their unique approach to living in his cursed home under the threat of his legendary status.

Reading reviews, I'm frustrated that the physical book experience seems confusing for people (lots of complaints about the "disjointed flow"--the audiobook makes it very clear who is telling the story and where we're at in the timeline of events. I wasn't confused at any point in time. There's a choir of ghostly voices from Bluebeard's murdered wives who interrupt the narrator sometimes as she's telling the story. The reader doesn't necessarily hear what they have said, just the narrator's response as she addresses them--sometimes the question is repeated--it's all very clear in the audiobook so I'm recommending it as the preferred experience for the best possible enjoyment of this book.

Final Recommendation: Sour Cherry is one of my favorite reads for the year. It has a fresh energy to the storytelling that I gobbled right up, I'm the exact audience for this book. The nested stories within the main tale are so absorbing, especially the tale of Bluebeard's son, Tristan.

“I never learned how to swim, after all, did I? Only how to drown.”

I love Natalia Theodoridou's approach to adapting this folktale for a modern audience, I enjoyed all the queer rep and the feminist lens. The narrator's voice is a 10/10 for me. I never wanted this to end.

Comps: The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, COMFORT ME WITH APPLES by Catherynne M. Valente, BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE by Anna Biller, MR FOX by Helen Oyeyemi, THE SEVENTH BRIDE by T. Kingfisher

[Meliza · Rating 2 out of 5]

idk something about doing a feminist bluebeard retelling but making him a misunderstood bisexual and having the first wife purposely pimping young girls to him kinda rubs me the wrong way
it started off really promising but after the son died i kinda checked out because genuinely what are we doing? why are we here?

i feel like i have yet to find a “feminist” retelling of Bluebeard that’s actually both enjoyable to read and has something interesting to say but that might just be me not really caring about the original fairy tale which is funny cuz on paper i feel like i should love it. and yet the story makes me feel nothing. like murdering women…bad…bad men do that, this is a story about how it’s bad when men do that and im just like yeah so true i guess?? i knew that! you see! it’s just not really a fairy tale that lends itself well to being changed! we’ve adapted Cinderella hundred of times and we’re still finding new ways of spicing it up (watch The Ugly Stepsister if you don’t believe me) but i feel like you can’t really do that with Bluebeard. like saying “im gonna do a Bluebeard retelling but make Bluebeard the character sympathetic” is really kind of boring! doesn’t society at large already make excuses for men when they commit violence against women? it’s like saying you wanna do a Little Red Riding Hood retelling and make it about sexuality like that was already the point! you added nothing!

the writings good when it’s not constantly repeating itself and bringing up how things are dying and this is a fairytale and maybe the narrator shouldn’t be saying or doing this and all that did i mention this is a fairytale and the animals are dying. oh btw the boy is cursed. bluebeard is cursed. and it’s killing the animals. when are we getting a feminist retelling of the green ribbon?? that’s something i’d love to see!

[Jan Agaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I already know this is one of those books I'm not only going to want to reread, but also one that I'd get something new out of every time. This is one of the very few books that felt similar to A Dowry of Blood aka my favorite book of all time mixed with T Kingfisher's writing style, aka one of my favorite authors of all time. It isn't a 5 just yet because I feel like some aspects of it went over my head, but upon reread I have a strong feeling it could earn that 5th star from me.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m a bit torn about this book. I was drawn in immediately by the premise - a dark, gothic retelling of Bluebeard is right up my alley. And in some ways, it lived up to that promise. The prose is lyrical, almost hypnotic, but it also brings a savvy modern edge to the story that I really liked (would have liked to have seen more of this part of the story, actually). On the other hand, it could also be tedious and repetitive and, while I understood the need for ambiguity in its metaphorical approach to cycles of violence, I thought it was often too abstract for its own good. This story is certainly going to stick with me for awhile, but it might be a tricky one to recommend to others. I’ll be curious to read future offerings by this author.

[♡ retrovvitches ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

if u like reading about awful men this might just be for you. i liked this, but i also didn’t. this was a historical goth retelling, and i always enjoy a mysterious narrator LOL. included some really impactful writing about queerness and femininity, but by about halfway through this i started to lose steam. it got really long and drawn out, and a tad boring. my favourite thing about this is prob the cover 🍒

[Sarah (menace mode) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could cry, this was SO close to being the 10/10 perfect mega-banger retelling of Bluebeard’s Wife that we all need and deserve 😭😭 there’s so much to love with the unreliable narration, weird gothic setting, fairytale storytelling and toxic masculinity being a product of both nature and nurture!! And the “Bluebeard” being a bisexual miserably unloved man?? Yeah sign me up!! I could fix him!! That is, unfortunately, what all of his dead wives thought and also what this author was thinking in the last 50 pages when they were trying to wrap it all up in a way that made sense. Gun to my head, I couldn’t tell you what happened to a single character at the end. I truly think that the author just got lost in the sauce of metaphors, pretty adjectives and people eating fucking cherries all the fucking time. NOBODY eats cherries in the quantity these people eat cherries.

[sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

thanks to edelweiss for the drc! this book gets a whole 5 stars from me, a hater...oh my god, this was just perfect. rarely if ever have i liked a 'fairytale retelling' (feels reductive to call it that, it's just too good) even though i always WANT to like them - this delivered absolutely everything and more. the last 10% actually floored me, apologies to anyone who experienced my Live Slug Reaction real-time as i clutched my head in my hands and said "oh no, oh no" a bunch. seriously, WOW. no, you don't need to be familiar with Bluebeard to read this, but yes, it's even better with context, since this work plays with the fourth wall and is definitely in conversation the original and stageplay versions of this tale (and probably to some other stuff I'm missing! I had no real knowledge before reading this, but I'm certainly interested now).

thank you to edelweiss for the arc, i can't wait to reread the physical when it comes out... as a sidenote, this book made some really fucking cool graphic design choices for page layouts + margins, which isn't something i see that often! truly just great on every level.

[riley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately this book was an absolute slog and its allegory not only fell flat but actually felt harmful.

I've reflected for a few weeks to see if I can give it a more charitable read, but here we are. The "story within a story" was not compelling, or at least not engaged with enough to become so, and in no way did it ever read like oral storytelling even though that's what it supposedly was. Reading this book felt like reading the same (melancholy and disappointing) 30 pages 10 times—which I assume in some ways is the point the author wanted to make about cycles of abuse—BUT, beyond being painful to read, I think this landed the narrative in an extremely poor place. The most meaningful message I can try to scrape from this novel is "some men are inevitably and inherently evil and some women will inevitably be their victims, but telling their stories matters or is redeeming in some way." ??? Maybe the evil curse from birth was supposed to allegorize societal/familial/etc. factors that make men violent, but it REALLY didn't feel that way; it felt like a bizarrely Calvinist idea of predestined evil and gendered violence.

Finally, the strangest thing that just took me out of the story again and again is that the author chose to make every single character bisexual, which is just a weird and simplifying way to handle sexuality (and also the nail in the coffin of feeling like there was no creativity in each iteration of the cycle as the narrative progressed).

I usually don't like to leave negative reviews if a book wasn't for me, but I see this one on lots of friends' TBRs and wanted to give my two cents to possibly save you the time and upset this one caused for me.

[Lisa Lincoln Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Folk tale literary retelling of Bluebeard. Truly imaginative premise. Somewhat flawed execution.

The novel begins with a framing device: a current-day mother telling her own disturbing story as a fairy tale to her child, surrounded by a Greek chorus of ghosts all clad in dresses "which used to be white, before they were red."

Her fairy tale begins many years ago in a time of horses and carriages and small villages ... and with a wet nurse: "not-quite-mother and not-quite-wife, the first discarded woman." Each chapter ends by stepping back into the narrator's frame.

Some have called this a feminist retelling, but it didn't read that way to me at all.

In this retelling, the author creates a sympathetic background for the man. The baby boy is cursed from birth, and as he grows into a man he is unable to stop the blight that plagues the land and follows in his wake. And because his mother leaves him when he's still very young, he worries that everyone will leave. Born with a curse, not his fault. Psychologically damaged by his mother, also not his fault.

Each woman who comes into his life, however, is seen as enabling him, forgiving him, staying with him until she falls victim to him. The ghosts of these women follow the narrator, embodying her future, asking why she stays.

That perennial question for every abused woman - why do you stay? - is repeated often. Here, the sympathetic portrayal of the man ends up blaming the abused woman for the abuse, for staying, for dying, for perpetuating the cycle of abuse. Perpetuating it not just for the next woman who encounters this man, but also by abandoning the children to carry that abuse into the next generation ... as the man's mother did to him. Thus the women are to blame.

Few characters have names, and the narrator calls attention to this so you don't miss it. The nameless man inflicts his abuse upon his nameless wives. The abuse is also unnamed, merely hinted at, left vague and undescribed. The next nameless wife carries the chest full of dresses of the previous wives, literal unnamed baggage that gets heavier with each next wife.

As to the title, throughout the story women are fed cherries, have lips stained by cherries, swallow cherry pits, plant cherry trees ... eat the cherries, swallow the pits, plant the trees ... invite a group of young girls to the manor and feed them cherries ... continue the cycle. Why cherries? Well, cherries are a symbol of virginity, so there's that.

It often feels like the author is trying to add literary weight by adding mysterious elements meant to be symbolism - such as the chest and the cherries - but I'm not smart enough to get the symbolism. Which items are merely atmosphere and which are symbols: the wallpaper? the fragile collectibles? the dresses? I can make up some ideas if I have to. The vagueness does add to the growing sense of dread I felt for the narrator however.

The novel begins to drag in the last third: wives, cherries, dresses, chests, blight, rinse and repeat. In the acknowledgments at the back of the book, the author notes that the novel was expanded from a short story, which explains the parts that feel like filler. From my perspective, the novel could have benefited from some judicious cutting and tightening.

The ending is inevitable but no less affecting for its inevitability. I wish it had somehow had a satisfactory answer for breaking the cycle of abuse. I wish it did not end still blaming the women for their victimhood.

I liked it but I didn't love it. 3 stars.

[ThatBookish_deviant · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0/5

Not gonna lie, I preordered Sour Cherry based solely on the stunning cover! Going in unawares, with no preconceived notions, I was quite pleasantly surprised. This is a gothic, slow burn, feminist reimagining of Bluebeard. I loved the exploration of gender roles, misogyny, and queerness found throughout this folk horror tale. I believe some readers may find the prose repetitious or slow but I reveled in it and feel the technique served the story well. I fully endorse Sour Cherry, it’s a delightfully haunting and promising debut from Natalia Theodoridou.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeously written and stunningly good. Contact me next year when you’ve all read this and I can debrief with you because WOW.

[John Wiswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a longtime admirer of Theodoridou's short fiction, this is exactly what I wanted. It's a novel fascinated with the folktale of Bluebeard, the serial killer who preyed on his unsuspecting wives. But it's preoccupied more with why they never left him and why he couldn't stop. It's a plot that aches, and the prose aches with it. Elegantly written, with so many haunting crannies between the paragraphs. A beautiful book.

[Chanel Chapters]

Wanted to love this but the cherry pit cracked my tooth.
Felt laborious and repetitive.

2⭐️

[Taylor Penn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh. Oh, wow. A retelling of Bluebeard both stunning and hopeless. Genuinely, I am at a loss for words.

Thank you Netgalley, Natalie Theodoridou, and Tin House for the eARC.

[Jules · Rating 2 out of 5]

frustratingly repetitive. the choice to not make the Lord responsible for any of the rot in the lands and villages he travels to (cursed from birth?) takes away a lot of the accountability in a text that, it seems, is trying to make a statement about masculine violence... an ineffective retelling imo

[Niki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frankly, it's boring. The idea is great, especially once you understand what is going on (plus the folktale elements, always love those), but the execution is just..... wordy as shit, a little chatterbox of a book that keeps repeating itself even when the reader got the point looong ago.

[Alyssa Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brand new gothic masterpiece, unlike anything I've ever read. I don't use the word "masterpiece" lightly - Theodoridou created a work of art that I wish I could frame on my wall and stare at for hours. I felt like I was holding my breath the entire time I read it - and I can't wait to start it over again.

[Kylee Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sour Cherry is a heartbreakingly beautiful tale about a boy, a man, a beast. Throughout the book we follow this lord from birth as he lives his life through cycles of tragedy, moving from house to house, wife to wife. We are hearing about the man from his most recent wife as she is telling her son the story of his father's life. In order to protect herself from her tragic past and bad memories, she accounts his life as more of a fairytale than the true history.

This story is full of misfortune, ghosts, darkness, and decay, but I absolutely loved it and would give this book 6 stars if that was allowed. I felt so many emotions while reading this and couldn't hold back my tears at the end.

I want to give a big thanks to the publisher for sending me an arc of one of my new favorite books.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

To not give this five stars caused me pain, as I was sure I was going to within the first 98 pages of the novel. In fact, I thought Sour Cherry might end up being my top favorite read of the year. Unfortunately, my firm grip on the narrative slipped as I continued, and the story began to mostly feel like a tedious chore. Rich symbolism can be mesmerizing, but I found consuming too much of it made it sit like a brick in my belly.

That being said, I think Natalia Theodoridou’s prose digs right into your skin. There are many keenly observed insights regarding domestic violence in this reimagining of the Bluebeard folktale. I did love Theodoridou’s portrayal of the two sides of an abuser, as well as how difficult it is to leave; how one never truly leaves, even if they manage to walk away. These are important ideas to convey, and most of the world fails repeatedly to comprehend them.

I feel, despite my rating, that this was a book worth reading, and it’s one I’d still recommend to others. I have high hopes for Theodoridou’s future works, knowing that the drawn out aspect of this debut is a quality that may be remedied in his next novel!

[Itzy Morales · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was confused, figured out it was a retelling of Bluebeard beard, and am still left confused.

It started off incredibly strong and had so much potential but then it became so boring. I feel like we spent way too much time talking about his childhood but especially about his time with Eunice. Obviously we needed to know about his childhood so that makes sense why it was so long but we spent wayyy too much time with Eunice. That could’ve been cut in half and still have left an impact.

What I needed to know more of was what happened with the second child with his not wife. That’s what I wanted to know. And we barely got to see it!!! Also, the way it went back and forth with the narration was a bit hard to follow up until the very end, at least for me. And dare I say, the cherries came out of no where but I digress. Has a lot of premise but too much repetition for my liking.

Thank you to Tin House publishing for the ARC.

[PaperbackGhosts · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gothic, lyrical, dreamlike story of ghosts, melancholy and decay. This story is a poignant commentary on toxic masculinity and the cycles of domestic violence. The way abusers taint everything around them, leaving behind ghosts of the past, and rot in the homes; and the excuses society makes for terrible men in power. The complexities of these relationships is portrayed incredibly; the duality of love and harm, the contradictions that are often at the heart of the cycle.

I was hoping to have another 5 star read before the end of the year, and I absolutely got my wish. This story will stay with me for a long time.

[Luuqq · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting approach to a Bluebearded fairytale... First half was great while the rest got to be repetitive and not much food for thought..with that being the focus (cycles of abuse, rinsing and repeating) it fell flat and didn’t have a crash bang of a climax! Loved the narrative and thought it was interesting in that regard! Not my typical read me think

[Cait Richine · Rating 5 out of 5]

My top book of 2025 thus far. A beautiful, haunting (no pun intended) fairy tale. With no moral of the story, Sour Cherry serves as a reminder that generational trauma, destructive love, and toxic masculinity are tales as old as time.

[sry_fully_booked run by QM · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to appreciate this and I just found it prolonged and not actually that smart.

[Alli Lavely · Rating 5 out of 5]

An achingly beautiful book.

It took me a long time to read this. Every time I picked it up, I loved the experience of reading it. Each passage is stunning, full of dark and brooding fairytale-esque imagery both lovely and horrific; you just want to keep reading and reading. But each time I put it down, I’d have a hard time picking it back up, often skipping reading entirely to avoid returning to the story.

I finally finished it in one two hour marathon, which both loved but also made me struggle to climb out of its darkness.

This book is consuming in a way that isn’t always pleasant. It’s a vague retelling of the Bluebeard fable, a story within a story within a story. It’s difficult to describe but I both loved this book and am eager to move on from it. I’m giving 5 stars because it’s truly a unique book, and one that I won’t soon forget.

[Kelsey Wagner · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, but I’m rounding up. The writing style is super different from what I usually read—lyrical, mysterious, and kind of mesmerizing once you settle into it. I didn’t know much about the Bluebeard story going in, so I did a little background reading and thought this was a cool, eerie take on it. It gave me The Others vibes (the Nicole Kidman movie)—quietly creepy and atmospheric. Would be a great pick for spooky season.

[ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars?!

I’m unsure of how I want to rate this book. I loved the writing, atmospheric, eerie and creepy at times, especially in the first half of the book. The pacing fell a little off after that though with multiple, very short chapters that seemed to mainly exist as fillers. Considering this book was supposed to be a short story at first it makes sense - it just made it a bit less enjoyable in the end.

Once again, due to the synopsis, my expectations were quite high though I felt somewhat disappointed after finishing the story. If it wasn’t advertised as a “feminist sermon” this probably would not have been something to criticize but the lingering rage that mainly happened between the lines was a little too quiet for me. The origin of the young lord’s evil was briefly questioned, hinting at the possibility that he in fact had a choice but wasn’t properly explored afterwards and, in my opinion, got lost between the lyrical build up to humanize him and excuse his actions with an inevitable curse. I would probably describe it more as a realistic telling of how domestic abuse and toxic relationships can often be experienced. At times it feels like a mirror of our society. Of how we live in a system that enables and excuses toxic masculinity, how extreme wealth destroys the life of those whose pockets are too empty to buy themselves into power.
While writing this I realise that all these topics, while not being portrayed the way I would have wished, lead me to ask questions about emancipatory change of social structures and that might just be what a "feminist sermon" tries to achieve?