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The Road to Nowhere #2
The Book of Etta
The apocalypse will be asymmetrical.
In the aftermath of a plague that has decimated the world population, the unnamed midwife confronts a new reality in which there may be no place for her. Indeed, there may be no place for any woman except at the end of a chain. A radical rearrangement is underway. With one woman left for every ten men, the landscape that the midwife travels is fraught with danger. She must reach safety— but is it safer to go it alone or take a chance on humanity? The friends she makes along the way will force her to choose what’s more important. Civilization stirs from the ruins, taking new and experimental forms. The midwife must help a new world come into being, but birth is always dangerous… and what comes of it is beyond anyone’s control.
In the aftermath of a plague that has decimated the world population, the unnamed midwife confronts a new reality in which there may be no place for her. Indeed, there may be no place for any woman except at the end of a chain. A radical rearrangement is underway. With one woman left for every ten men, the landscape that the midwife travels is fraught with danger. She must reach safety— but is it safer to go it alone or take a chance on humanity? The friends she makes along the way will force her to choose what’s more important. Civilization stirs from the ruins, taking new and experimental forms. The midwife must help a new world come into being, but birth is always dangerous… and what comes of it is beyond anyone’s control.
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First published February 21, 2017
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About the author
Meg Elison
48 books1,116 followersMeg Elison is a Hugo, Philip K. Dick and Locus award winning author, as well as a Nebula, Sturgeon, Eugie, and Otherwise awards finalist. A prolific short story writer and essayist, Elison has been published in Scientific American, McSweeney’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fangoria, and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley. She lives in the Berkshires.
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February 28, 2017
The Book of Etta is the follow-up of the extraordinary The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. For more information you can read my review here.
The Book of Etta is the kind of follow up for which you need to read the previous book in the series in order to understand what is going on. In The Book of Unnamed Midwife a disease wipes out 98 % of the human population, the women and the unborn babies being the most affected, leaving approx. 1 woman to 10 men. A terrible world to live in. The main character is a nurse who wakes up in the hospital bed where she was left to die with the disease. Thanks to her fighting instincts and skills she battles for survival in a world were there are no more rules and nothing to strive for. Disguised as a man, she travels from San Francisco to the north in search for safety. During her journey her path is crossed with people who react differently to the tragedy around them and who will mark her life, no matter how much she struggles to avoid any contact. I loved the realism and the way the author imagined different way the society restructured after to face the new reality. In some parts women were sold as sexual slaves, in others women organized themselves in hives, keeping more lovers in the household.
After reading the first book I felt that it was perfect as a standalone and there was no need for a second novel. I still do not think Book of Etta was necessary or that it added much to the plot but that does not mean that I did not enjoy reading it.
The book of Etta is set 100 years after the events in first novel at a time few memories remain of the world before the disease. Etta is a young woman living in Nowhere, a matriarchal town where women could choose between two destinies: to become a midwife or a mother with all the risks involved (many of the mothers and newborns were developing the disease during birth). Etta did not want to be either and decided to become a raider, a person who explores the surrounding looking for valuable things remaining from the Old World for trading purposes. As women are scarce and valuable Etta disguises herself as a man while on the road and becomes Eddy. Etta/Eddy’s main purpose is to find and save enslaved women and bring them to safety to her town.
I do not want to go too much in detail on the plot. What it needs to be said is that this book is less about survival and has less action than the first book. The blurb is misleading as the kidnapping part happens only at the end. The author uses the apocalyptic unfair new world as a backdrop to discuss sexuality and sexual/gender identity. There quite a few gender/sexual variations present and a lot of time is spend discussing the challenges that are faced in this oppressive new society, being it matriarchal or patriarchal. There were a lot of sexual issues discussed in the first book as well and I thought that there the balance was just right. Here I felt that they took too much from the novel.
The supernatural ending made me decrease my rating with one star because I could not see its place in the rough realism that characterized the prose until then. I hope the next book will not be about the supernatural Mormons who save the world.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
The Book of Etta is the kind of follow up for which you need to read the previous book in the series in order to understand what is going on. In The Book of Unnamed Midwife a disease wipes out 98 % of the human population, the women and the unborn babies being the most affected, leaving approx. 1 woman to 10 men. A terrible world to live in. The main character is a nurse who wakes up in the hospital bed where she was left to die with the disease. Thanks to her fighting instincts and skills she battles for survival in a world were there are no more rules and nothing to strive for. Disguised as a man, she travels from San Francisco to the north in search for safety. During her journey her path is crossed with people who react differently to the tragedy around them and who will mark her life, no matter how much she struggles to avoid any contact. I loved the realism and the way the author imagined different way the society restructured after to face the new reality. In some parts women were sold as sexual slaves, in others women organized themselves in hives, keeping more lovers in the household.
After reading the first book I felt that it was perfect as a standalone and there was no need for a second novel. I still do not think Book of Etta was necessary or that it added much to the plot but that does not mean that I did not enjoy reading it.
The book of Etta is set 100 years after the events in first novel at a time few memories remain of the world before the disease. Etta is a young woman living in Nowhere, a matriarchal town where women could choose between two destinies: to become a midwife or a mother with all the risks involved (many of the mothers and newborns were developing the disease during birth). Etta did not want to be either and decided to become a raider, a person who explores the surrounding looking for valuable things remaining from the Old World for trading purposes. As women are scarce and valuable Etta disguises herself as a man while on the road and becomes Eddy. Etta/Eddy’s main purpose is to find and save enslaved women and bring them to safety to her town.
I do not want to go too much in detail on the plot. What it needs to be said is that this book is less about survival and has less action than the first book. The blurb is misleading as the kidnapping part happens only at the end. The author uses the apocalyptic unfair new world as a backdrop to discuss sexuality and sexual/gender identity. There quite a few gender/sexual variations present and a lot of time is spend discussing the challenges that are faced in this oppressive new society, being it matriarchal or patriarchal. There were a lot of sexual issues discussed in the first book as well and I thought that there the balance was just right. Here I felt that they took too much from the novel.
The supernatural ending made me decrease my rating with one star because I could not see its place in the rough realism that characterized the prose until then. I hope the next book will not be about the supernatural Mormons who save the world.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
April 1, 2017
I loved the first book in this series. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. I felt like it was a whole new take on the dystopian story world. I will say that normally I don't read many series and I shouldn't have picked this one up. I didn't hate it..I didn't love it either.
It picks up a hundred years from where the previous book left off. In the first book the Midwife lived through the plague that wiped out most of the world's women and all of the children. There has been some improvement made in the life expectancy of women in this one..but they still are being used as trade and slaves.
This book is Etta/Eddy's story. He is a raider who goes out to help rescue any women that need help and bring them back to his town named "Nowhere." He binds his breasts on the road and lives completely as Eddy. Once back home he has to become Etta again and try to fit into what the society there thinks she should.
Etta/Eddy does lots of roaming in this book. Picking up a "horsewoman" named Flora and bringing her home just opens up a whole new can of worms for Etta/Eddy.
As much as I loved the first book, this one just felt like it had already been done to death. I mean even this happens. (And I hate it on the Walking Dead also)
You do get an evil bad guy named the "Lion." He is a pretty decent baddie.
The gender confusion that Eddy/Etta feels and some parts of the story do hold up well and this is not a horrible book at all. The whole judgement that I felt with being attracted to same sex people, black people still standing out and some of the authors world building in general are still quite good.
I actually might pick up the final one just to see the Mormon's win the day. (I hope they do.) They stood out in this book.
(It also looks like it is the "horsewoman" Flora's book. I'm betting it could get interesting.)
This review has probably confused the heck out of you if you haven't read the first book..and it's one that I do think you have to read before following up with this one. But they ain't bad.
Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review
It picks up a hundred years from where the previous book left off. In the first book the Midwife lived through the plague that wiped out most of the world's women and all of the children. There has been some improvement made in the life expectancy of women in this one..but they still are being used as trade and slaves.
This book is Etta/Eddy's story. He is a raider who goes out to help rescue any women that need help and bring them back to his town named "Nowhere." He binds his breasts on the road and lives completely as Eddy. Once back home he has to become Etta again and try to fit into what the society there thinks she should.
Etta/Eddy does lots of roaming in this book. Picking up a "horsewoman" named Flora and bringing her home just opens up a whole new can of worms for Etta/Eddy.
As much as I loved the first book, this one just felt like it had already been done to death. I mean even this happens. (And I hate it on the Walking Dead also)
You do get an evil bad guy named the "Lion." He is a pretty decent baddie.
The gender confusion that Eddy/Etta feels and some parts of the story do hold up well and this is not a horrible book at all. The whole judgement that I felt with being attracted to same sex people, black people still standing out and some of the authors world building in general are still quite good.
I actually might pick up the final one just to see the Mormon's win the day. (I hope they do.) They stood out in this book.
(It also looks like it is the "horsewoman" Flora's book. I'm betting it could get interesting.)
This review has probably confused the heck out of you if you haven't read the first book..and it's one that I do think you have to read before following up with this one. But they ain't bad.
Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review
October 3, 2018
ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
1.) The Book of the Unnamed Midwife ★★★★★
“The Unnamed Midwife had been a founder in Nowhere. She had been from the old world, a trained nurse and Midwife who had lived through the dying and seen how it all came down. She had left behind her journals, which told the whole story—her own as well as the world’s. It was known by every man, woman, and child in Nowhere. They kept their own journals as a way to carry on her work.”
I read over one-hundred books in 2016, but the predecessor to this book, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, was my favorite of them all. And even though that’s one of the most powerful books I’ve still ever read in my entire life, it’s also one of the heaviest books I’ve ever read. So, I’ve been putting off this second installment for far too long. But, friends, I finally picked it up and I’m so happy that I did. But again, as much as this book was also powerful, it’s also so very heartbreaking.
In The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, 98% of Earth's population of men and 99% of Earth's population of women have died from an autoimmune disease. Even though most of the Earth's population was wiped out, the ratio of men to women is immense. And even in the future from the initial outbreak, women are still the most sought-after thing. In this second installment, the timeline is many generations in the future (approximately one-hundred-years), but we get to the community that the unnamed midwife helped build. This current community has adapted so many of the things that we saw in The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, and we get to see that not a lot has changed in this post-apocalyptic world.
“I’m Eddy on the road, and I’m Etta at home. I’m both.”
And we follow Etta when she is with her community, Nowhere, and we follow Eddy when he is scavenging outside of his community. I am going to use they/them pronouns for the rest of this review, but I believe our main character is nonbinary and genderfluid, even though those words are never used on page. This entire book really puts gender at the front of this story, because Etta/Eddy doesn’t want to be what is expected of a woman in this world. They don’t want to become a mother, they don’t want to raise children, and they do not want to deliver babies. They want to hunt, and forage, and rescue girls that aren’t even given a choice in this new and cruel world. Also, Etta/Eddy is black and also sees how racism hasn’t ceased, even with the world almost ending.
“Boys can be anything. Girls can only be one thing.”
We also are introduced to a transwoman in this book who becomes such a pivotal character. Flora completely made my heart break in this book, but she was also such a bright beacon of hope. She honestly deserves the entire world, and she better be given it in the final book, The Book of Flora.
But we get to see Etta/Eddy travel to different communities from their own and see how the different groups and people live and prosper. Some treat women lower than currency, some treat them like mystical saints, but we get to see all the in-betweens, too. Etta/Eddy meets Flora rather quickly, and they soon travel together to the worst city Etta/Eddy may have seen yet. When they reach the stronghold of the Lion, they aren’t entirely sure what to expect. But even their nightmares wouldn’t prepare them for what this tyrant ruler is truly like.
This is a very dark and heavy book. Please use caution before reading and make sure you are in a safe headspace. Major content and trigger warnings for rape, sexual assault, genital mutilation, pedophilia, sex trafficking, slavery, murder, death, loss of a loved one, miscarrying, torture, misgendering, racist comments, misogynistic comments, abduction, captivity, violence, animal death, and war themes.
“On the map, all the roads led to Estiel.”
Overall, Meg Elison writes the queer, feminist, inclusionary literature of my heart. This book is important, and powerful, and empowering. It’s hard, and brutal, and heartbreaking, but I promise it is so rewarding. The reason I am giving it four stars is because the ending felt rushed to me. And even though I loved this entire ending with the soul of my being, it just happened in the blink of an eye. Yet, I am so excited to see where the next book picks up, because I am sort of obsessed with their location! But friends, if you are in the right headspace, please give The Book of the Unnamed Midwife a try. It’s truly a masterpiece, and this entire series means more to me than I have words for.
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The quotes above were taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.
Buddy read with Jules at JA Ironside! ❤
February 10, 2017
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!
The first book in the Road to Nowhere series hit me out of nowhere with it's stark and uncompromising view of humanity and the inhumanity of men toward women when a plague decimated (literally) the population of women. There's only one woman out of ten men across the world. It reads much more delightfully than Frank Herbert's The White Plague and it has a much more grimdark feel than even The Children of Men.
The second picks up and drives home the same point with a brand new twist: gender issues figure very strongly, but it's much more than just women being subjugated by men. This book takes gender identity and explores many very cool twists and shows it off starkly in this dystopian world.
No spoilers, but we get a lot of different gender identities and they're all showcased in ways that even surprised me.
Is this a survival novel? Absolutely. Is it as difficult as only cruel-literature can be? Absolutely. These stories aren't for the weak of heart and some people might get overwhelmed by just how evil men can be, but we're meant to see this all in a stark spotlight.
This might not be a big surprise, but the main character Eddy/Etta pretends to be a man on the road while being a heroic raider who kills slavers to free women, while being what her culture requires her to be when she returns to her home, Nowhere. It's very much like a Shakespearian play where the only way to get ahead is to pretend. But this is only where the novel starts. It ends up having traveled all across the map by the end and I was very impressed. :)
AGAIN, this is not for the faint of heart. It's dystopian in almost every way, but there is a fine balance of hope. :)
The first book in the Road to Nowhere series hit me out of nowhere with it's stark and uncompromising view of humanity and the inhumanity of men toward women when a plague decimated (literally) the population of women. There's only one woman out of ten men across the world. It reads much more delightfully than Frank Herbert's The White Plague and it has a much more grimdark feel than even The Children of Men.
The second picks up and drives home the same point with a brand new twist: gender issues figure very strongly, but it's much more than just women being subjugated by men. This book takes gender identity and explores many very cool twists and shows it off starkly in this dystopian world.
No spoilers, but we get a lot of different gender identities and they're all showcased in ways that even surprised me.
Is this a survival novel? Absolutely. Is it as difficult as only cruel-literature can be? Absolutely. These stories aren't for the weak of heart and some people might get overwhelmed by just how evil men can be, but we're meant to see this all in a stark spotlight.
This might not be a big surprise, but the main character Eddy/Etta pretends to be a man on the road while being a heroic raider who kills slavers to free women, while being what her culture requires her to be when she returns to her home, Nowhere. It's very much like a Shakespearian play where the only way to get ahead is to pretend. But this is only where the novel starts. It ends up having traveled all across the map by the end and I was very impressed. :)
AGAIN, this is not for the faint of heart. It's dystopian in almost every way, but there is a fine balance of hope. :)
June 29, 2017
*** 4.25 ***
A buddy read with the MacHalos, because we obviously want to have nightmares for a while...
WTF??? Why are we doing this to ourselves? Why is Meg Elison doing this to us?? And what is wrong with us to actually appreciate it and ask for more??? I think there is a word for insanity like ours, but I would rather not put us in a category....
Speaking of categories... Talk about a world which is trying its darnest to figure out how to put people in tidy little categories and cement into them! If only they could get the thousands of little survivalist groups and cults to agree with whatever they believe in, it would all work out... Hahahaha, no, of course this does not happen in this very much Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, taken down by a pandemic world, where women are an extreme minority and childbirth still a death sentence for both mother and child.
"...“Before the plague, women were rulers and peacekeepers and cooks and dancers and whatever they wanted to be. And they had medicine that made it impossible to get pregnant. They were free. And now they’re property almost everywhere, raped to death and sold to monsters by monsters.”..."
In "The Book of the Unnamed Midwife" we were introduced to the immediate mayhem, insanity and fall-out following the plague which killed off most women, as well as 3/4ths of the population, and made it impossible to have life births for decades after. We got to meet the Unnamed Midwife and her journals, which are now, 100 years later, revered by all in Nowhere, the settlement where she spend the later part of her life. Now Etta/Eddy is following in her footsteps, being one of the Unnamed's biggest fans and hero-worshiping her, dreaming of bringing change and being a hero, just as she imagined the first Midwife was... So she goes on raids, out of Nowhere, and searches for women to help and rescue, while finding a harsher fate for the slavers, who are prominent in this reality. Only the life outside is not going to sit still and let her do this unscathed...
"...“The Unnamed was Etta’s hero. Not as a Midwife, but as a survivor, a person who could be anything they had to be to survive. ”..."
Book one was very much a survivalist story, shining the spotlight on women's issues and pointing the mirror back at our society as a whole. This book does the same, but through the prism of the overlooked minorities in the larger minority. In a society where women are looked upon as either holy, a commodity, or a means for procreation and sex, either way, highly desirable, the gay, lesbian and transgendered individuals really have no leg to stand on. Since in either case women are pinned to a set of very strict and narrow expectations, a woman who would choose to be with another woman, or a woman who would not want to have a child just does not make sense. The fixation on continuation of humanity has made those groups completely invisible and while a man turning to another man is somewhat accepted, given the rarity of women, it is looked upon not as a natural and innate persuasion, but as making the best of a difficult situation with an expectation that if a woman enters the picture, the men would gladly forsake the "unnatural" ways... You would think that 100 years after this catastrophic disaster they would have figured out a way for men and women to coexist in some semblance of a sane, productive, and still respectful way, but nothing much has changed since the first years of the Fall of society. IT IS PAINFUL TO READ!!! Painful in a slightly different way the the previous book, but just as difficult to pull yourself away from the train-wreck this story drags us into.
"...“This gun is blank and empty, and you can fill the cylinder with anything at all. You can pack it with dirt or fill it with bullets. You can change the world forever, depending on where you point it. You can leave behind terror or justice. You can be as important as the Unnamed, or as lost as any of the men she put down with it. You hear?”..."
I am not sure what it is about this series that is so traumatic but still hypnotic, that I engulfed each of the books in a day! I felt uncomfortable, shocked, angry and even enraged, as well as deeply sorrowful for the people in this world and I know I am going to have nightmares for weeks! As foreign to us as this subject is, in its core, the issues are valid even today and I think this is exactly what makes the series so powerful. It points out how deeply the things that differentiate us from one another affect our view of the world. Etta/Eddy is not only shaped by the feeling of being different or the way people view her differences. Her self-perception of being different is blinding her to the things that make her/him the same with those around. Making the "I am different" the core of his/her life, becomes internalized in self-loathing and nonacceptance of those who are just as different as s/he is... Which leads to some very painful scenes and difficult monologues. But it feels so real, so raw and relatable, that you are fully immersed and on the difficult road with the protagonist in this fallen civilization and among the regressing humanity. On top of it all, the bad guys in the book live in the overgrown village of Estiel, which is a version of STL, or what is best known as my home town, the home of the Silver Arch, Saint Louis, Missouri! Great, now I will not be able to go close to the Arch and not think of bad, bad things happening! I am not sure I would be strong enough to keep the will to live if I ever find myself in this scenario, but I also hope we never, EVER get to that point! I have faith - after all, there is a place where people connect on the internet over books, so humanity still has a chance:):):):)
I am going to leave you with a warning - this series should be read in order and it is not for the faint of heart! Also, if you have issues with rape, same-sex themes, or any type of violence, think if you are in the right emotional state to tackle it. I totally understand if those things are a hard no-no line. No puppies and rainbows, no fluffy clouds and sweet nothings! It is raw, it is dark, it is bleak! But it is also very thought-provoking and entrancing. So it is up to you, just make the educated choice.
Now I wish you all Happy Reading and may You Always find what you Need in the pages of a good Book!!!
A buddy read with the MacHalos, because we obviously want to have nightmares for a while...
WTF??? Why are we doing this to ourselves? Why is Meg Elison doing this to us?? And what is wrong with us to actually appreciate it and ask for more??? I think there is a word for insanity like ours, but I would rather not put us in a category....
Speaking of categories... Talk about a world which is trying its darnest to figure out how to put people in tidy little categories and cement into them! If only they could get the thousands of little survivalist groups and cults to agree with whatever they believe in, it would all work out... Hahahaha, no, of course this does not happen in this very much Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, taken down by a pandemic world, where women are an extreme minority and childbirth still a death sentence for both mother and child.
"...“Before the plague, women were rulers and peacekeepers and cooks and dancers and whatever they wanted to be. And they had medicine that made it impossible to get pregnant. They were free. And now they’re property almost everywhere, raped to death and sold to monsters by monsters.”..."
In "The Book of the Unnamed Midwife" we were introduced to the immediate mayhem, insanity and fall-out following the plague which killed off most women, as well as 3/4ths of the population, and made it impossible to have life births for decades after. We got to meet the Unnamed Midwife and her journals, which are now, 100 years later, revered by all in Nowhere, the settlement where she spend the later part of her life. Now Etta/Eddy is following in her footsteps, being one of the Unnamed's biggest fans and hero-worshiping her, dreaming of bringing change and being a hero, just as she imagined the first Midwife was... So she goes on raids, out of Nowhere, and searches for women to help and rescue, while finding a harsher fate for the slavers, who are prominent in this reality. Only the life outside is not going to sit still and let her do this unscathed...
"...“The Unnamed was Etta’s hero. Not as a Midwife, but as a survivor, a person who could be anything they had to be to survive. ”..."
Book one was very much a survivalist story, shining the spotlight on women's issues and pointing the mirror back at our society as a whole. This book does the same, but through the prism of the overlooked minorities in the larger minority. In a society where women are looked upon as either holy, a commodity, or a means for procreation and sex, either way, highly desirable, the gay, lesbian and transgendered individuals really have no leg to stand on. Since in either case women are pinned to a set of very strict and narrow expectations, a woman who would choose to be with another woman, or a woman who would not want to have a child just does not make sense. The fixation on continuation of humanity has made those groups completely invisible and while a man turning to another man is somewhat accepted, given the rarity of women, it is looked upon not as a natural and innate persuasion, but as making the best of a difficult situation with an expectation that if a woman enters the picture, the men would gladly forsake the "unnatural" ways... You would think that 100 years after this catastrophic disaster they would have figured out a way for men and women to coexist in some semblance of a sane, productive, and still respectful way, but nothing much has changed since the first years of the Fall of society. IT IS PAINFUL TO READ!!! Painful in a slightly different way the the previous book, but just as difficult to pull yourself away from the train-wreck this story drags us into.
"...“This gun is blank and empty, and you can fill the cylinder with anything at all. You can pack it with dirt or fill it with bullets. You can change the world forever, depending on where you point it. You can leave behind terror or justice. You can be as important as the Unnamed, or as lost as any of the men she put down with it. You hear?”..."
I am not sure what it is about this series that is so traumatic but still hypnotic, that I engulfed each of the books in a day! I felt uncomfortable, shocked, angry and even enraged, as well as deeply sorrowful for the people in this world and I know I am going to have nightmares for weeks! As foreign to us as this subject is, in its core, the issues are valid even today and I think this is exactly what makes the series so powerful. It points out how deeply the things that differentiate us from one another affect our view of the world. Etta/Eddy is not only shaped by the feeling of being different or the way people view her differences. Her self-perception of being different is blinding her to the things that make her/him the same with those around. Making the "I am different" the core of his/her life, becomes internalized in self-loathing and nonacceptance of those who are just as different as s/he is... Which leads to some very painful scenes and difficult monologues. But it feels so real, so raw and relatable, that you are fully immersed and on the difficult road with the protagonist in this fallen civilization and among the regressing humanity. On top of it all, the bad guys in the book live in the overgrown village of Estiel, which is a version of STL, or what is best known as my home town, the home of the Silver Arch, Saint Louis, Missouri! Great, now I will not be able to go close to the Arch and not think of bad, bad things happening! I am not sure I would be strong enough to keep the will to live if I ever find myself in this scenario, but I also hope we never, EVER get to that point! I have faith - after all, there is a place where people connect on the internet over books, so humanity still has a chance:):):):)
I am going to leave you with a warning - this series should be read in order and it is not for the faint of heart! Also, if you have issues with rape, same-sex themes, or any type of violence, think if you are in the right emotional state to tackle it. I totally understand if those things are a hard no-no line. No puppies and rainbows, no fluffy clouds and sweet nothings! It is raw, it is dark, it is bleak! But it is also very thought-provoking and entrancing. So it is up to you, just make the educated choice.
Now I wish you all Happy Reading and may You Always find what you Need in the pages of a good Book!!!
December 2, 2018
THE BOOK OF ETTA (THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 2) is a heavy piece of dark, post-apocalyptic fiction.
This story picks up about 100 years after THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE. The Unnamed created the city of Nowhere and now they have developed their own way of life. Since the plague that started everything, women are scarce and children even more so. As such, Nowhere honors women and to keep the human race going, women there have created hives-a group of men/lovers who help that woman with chores and who also provide regular loving- with the hopes of childbirth as the result. According to the elders of Nowhere, this is the chief role of women now. Period.
Here, we meet Etta, who feels constrained in Nowhere. Etta has no time for hives or for childbirth, and she wants no part of it. She goes out as a raider instead-looking for goods from the old world which can be made useful again. On her travels, she binds herself up to pass for a man and calls herself Eddie. There are more reasons for that other than the plain fact that it's safer to travel as a man, but I'll let you discover those reasons on your own. As Eddie, he comes across several towns, all with their own ways of doing things, (the world building here is impressive), and then he comes across the town of STL. (I see other reviews calling it Estiel, but I listened to the audio and I just assumed it was STL, so I'm sticking with that.) In STL reigns a man called "The Lion." What he has going on in HIS city is a travesty and an injustice-one that Eddie cannot let stand. Will he be successful in putting an end to the practices of The Lion? Will he survive? Will humanity survive? You'll have to read this to find out!
I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as the first, but I think that's because it took me a little time to get used to the voices of Etta/Eddie. Once I did, though, I settled down and let the story wash over me. As I said above the world-building here is so interesting, each town having their own beliefs about women and children and how to keep humankind going, it provided a lot to think about. Also, it was sad to see what happened to America in the wake of the plague-how many things had been forgotten, the uses for implements lost to history, and of course, what happened to personal freedoms and choices. It's hard for women to live in this world right now, just imagine how hard it would be in a world with no medicines, no birth control, no choices at all for women in general. These were the aspects of this world that interested me the most.
As a note of caution to potential readers-there are all kinds of unpleasant happenings in this book. None of it surprised or shocked me, avid horror reader that I am, but it might shock some. Rapes, pedophiles, genital mutilation, child abuse and other things are part of the post plague world and if those things really get to you, you might want to take a pass.
That said, I recommend this book if you enjoyed the first in the trilogy. No, it's not the same as THE UNNAMED, and no, it's not even the same world as the first book because things have changed so much, but Etta and Eddie have a lot to say and I, for one, was happy to listen. I'm intrigued and excited for the last book THE BOOK OF FLORA, which I've already requested from NetGalley.
I bought this audiobook with my hard earned cash. This review is my honest opinion.
This story picks up about 100 years after THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE. The Unnamed created the city of Nowhere and now they have developed their own way of life. Since the plague that started everything, women are scarce and children even more so. As such, Nowhere honors women and to keep the human race going, women there have created hives-a group of men/lovers who help that woman with chores and who also provide regular loving- with the hopes of childbirth as the result. According to the elders of Nowhere, this is the chief role of women now. Period.
Here, we meet Etta, who feels constrained in Nowhere. Etta has no time for hives or for childbirth, and she wants no part of it. She goes out as a raider instead-looking for goods from the old world which can be made useful again. On her travels, she binds herself up to pass for a man and calls herself Eddie. There are more reasons for that other than the plain fact that it's safer to travel as a man, but I'll let you discover those reasons on your own. As Eddie, he comes across several towns, all with their own ways of doing things, (the world building here is impressive), and then he comes across the town of STL. (I see other reviews calling it Estiel, but I listened to the audio and I just assumed it was STL, so I'm sticking with that.) In STL reigns a man called "The Lion." What he has going on in HIS city is a travesty and an injustice-one that Eddie cannot let stand. Will he be successful in putting an end to the practices of The Lion? Will he survive? Will humanity survive? You'll have to read this to find out!
I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as the first, but I think that's because it took me a little time to get used to the voices of Etta/Eddie. Once I did, though, I settled down and let the story wash over me. As I said above the world-building here is so interesting, each town having their own beliefs about women and children and how to keep humankind going, it provided a lot to think about. Also, it was sad to see what happened to America in the wake of the plague-how many things had been forgotten, the uses for implements lost to history, and of course, what happened to personal freedoms and choices. It's hard for women to live in this world right now, just imagine how hard it would be in a world with no medicines, no birth control, no choices at all for women in general. These were the aspects of this world that interested me the most.
As a note of caution to potential readers-there are all kinds of unpleasant happenings in this book. None of it surprised or shocked me, avid horror reader that I am, but it might shock some. Rapes, pedophiles, genital mutilation, child abuse and other things are part of the post plague world and if those things really get to you, you might want to take a pass.
That said, I recommend this book if you enjoyed the first in the trilogy. No, it's not the same as THE UNNAMED, and no, it's not even the same world as the first book because things have changed so much, but Etta and Eddie have a lot to say and I, for one, was happy to listen. I'm intrigued and excited for the last book THE BOOK OF FLORA, which I've already requested from NetGalley.
I bought this audiobook with my hard earned cash. This review is my honest opinion.
January 18, 2024
This is the second book of the The Road to Nowhere series that started with The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. At first I thought the first one was so flabbergastingly hard to read (violent, not glossing anything over) that I felt more numb during this (the shock having worn off perhaps), that the impact is lessened because there is no tie to the old world (ours) anymore. But that changed mid-way through the book (right now I'm actually shaking from rage).
The story is that of Eddy/Etta (Eddy is the male name she adopts on the road to be safe ). She grew up in Nowhere, the settlement where the Unnamed Midwife ended up in book 1. And boy, has that place changed! We had gotten hints in the first book but this time we got the full picture and let me tell you, it isn't pretty. It looks good on the surface (which is the point) but that look is deceiving (also a point made by the author in several situations throughout the story).
You see, being a mother is considered the epitome of what women can achieve, basically letting us revert back to the old times when women were nothing but breeding machines and housekeepers. Only this time this way of thinking comes from the women themselves. I get it to a certain degree, considering how many women are dead (almost all) and how few can actually give birth, to a living child and without dying no less. Nevertheless, considering how many keep talking about staying away from men, being independent and safe from men, changing from the old ways, this is almost hilariously tragic.
The conflict, then, is that Eddy doesn't want to be a mother. She wants to be exactly like her idol, the Unnamed. Sadly, she gets many things wrong because during the roughly 100 years since the Unnamed lived, much of her story has been ... changed (I guess that despite the journals it's much like the game "telephone"). Not to mention the differences that are natural due to the time that has passed and Etta having been brought up differently.
And that is exactly when Nowhere shows its real face with Etta's mother and others trying to emotionally pressure Etta into being a mother. They do this to others as well. Through Etta's eyes we see that relationships between women are frowned upon (being considered a waste) and that homosexuals in general are being treated badly (not invited to events, living secluded lives etc). And that is the "good" place here!
In general, I got the feeling that the people in this world were far more hard-nosed, with emotions either having been bred out of them or whatever. Of course it's OK to be tough because you need that to survive in such a world, but when you live in a relatively secure and "civilized" settlement but cannot even connect to the people you supposedly love? There is something wrong right there.
So Etta hits the road often and during her trips she encounters other people, like the Lion of Estiel (yes, he has lions and tigers as pets, I wonder if the author liked a certain character of The Walking Dead *lol*), and other settlements/cities. We get to see that the world is basically as desolate as it was in book 1, what with slave traders selling females (even toddlers), women being cut (genital mutilation being another important topic), women being used as sex toys and breeding machines, general abuse and lots of killings, not to mention no plumbing, general dirt and no creature comforts as is typical for any apocalyptic setting.
However, what was new was that there were also catamites and boys sometimes even getting orchidectomies (castrations). This is an interesting development, especially since through it the author explores gender identities even more thoroughly as in book 1.
I won't say any more about the developments further along because that would spoil too much.
What really got to me was the hypocrisy of the people. I know it's realistic. It already is a big problem nowadays so after the end of the world it can only get worse. Nevertheless, it got to me. Especially having seen what had become of Nowhere was hard because, silly as I am, I saw it as a beacon of hope for "normalcy". *lol* Instead, it's a place where people cannot be who they are, are repressed and get subdued in multiple ways, where one thing is said but not adhered to (like them despising slave traders but wanting to trade with the Lion because it's safer).
And the stupidity everywhere!
Like in Nowhere, which has been a fort in the beginning Or the fact that which was appalling (I am aware the author did that on purpose but that sort of thing never sat right with me). They even ban words there, censoring talk about abortions and other topics on top of having taboo subjects such as homosexuality.
But that was neither the only place where people were stupid nor the only thing people were stupid about - illiteracy was also a big problem. I get that for drifters and loners, but not for settlements and cities. Books are a commodity, a valuable thing to trade (like pretty much anything from the old world), but they deliberately only teach a few or nobody at all how to read. In some cases it can be a tool in order to control people (not a new concept) but especially in places like Jeff City I don't understand it because it is simply counter-productive! Then again, I didn't get their sheep mentality either ...
And don't get me started on places like Manhattan/Womanhattan and their silly rules like silence being a gift of the women or sons having to leave mothers aged 6 at the latest because the women "have more important stuff to do" while girls get to stay with their mothers.
If it wasn't so infuriating, I'd laugh.
It all sounded like a string of cults, one worse and more stupid than the one before, actually creepy (especially ), and I do admit that I actually liked how most of them got what they deserved for their lies and treachery (such as ). Sadly, *grinds teeth*
Funny was that I was right all along and *lol*
So this is a story about individuality, the repression of exactly that and the often complicated search/fight for who we are and being at peace with yourself in the end (sort of). There were a few other messages too and not all were to my liking (although I'm often unsure whether the author meant it literally or was being sarcastic).
The writing was again superb, the interactions between the characters fantastically and intelligently portrayed, and there were quite a few puzzles to solve. There are lots of conflicts as well, reality clashing with wishful thinking, narrowmindedness or even idealism (not to mention religion). Thus, despite my reservations (I often fear that a good book is ruined by its sequel - especially if I haven't known there will be a sequel as in this case) the book was extremely good. The way people were thinking (all of them) was too alien to me so I didn't care too much about individuals in the beginning but that changed simply because I couldn't stand the status quo after a certain point. And the author again managed to build a wonderful (realistic) world that I did care for, telling a deep if unsettling story, all of which sucked me into the book and kept me captivated.
Thus, I recommend this book to anyone who likes an intelligent story, with an exploration of deep and important topics, that is well-written and has realistic characters (and yes, I'll nominate it for a HUGO in 2018).
And now excuse me please, I'll have to go and shout my lungs out in frustration because of what happened in the end.
The story is that of Eddy/Etta (Eddy is the male name she adopts on the road to be safe ). She grew up in Nowhere, the settlement where the Unnamed Midwife ended up in book 1. And boy, has that place changed! We had gotten hints in the first book but this time we got the full picture and let me tell you, it isn't pretty. It looks good on the surface (which is the point) but that look is deceiving (also a point made by the author in several situations throughout the story).
You see, being a mother is considered the epitome of what women can achieve, basically letting us revert back to the old times when women were nothing but breeding machines and housekeepers. Only this time this way of thinking comes from the women themselves. I get it to a certain degree, considering how many women are dead (almost all) and how few can actually give birth, to a living child and without dying no less. Nevertheless, considering how many keep talking about staying away from men, being independent and safe from men, changing from the old ways, this is almost hilariously tragic.
The conflict, then, is that Eddy doesn't want to be a mother. She wants to be exactly like her idol, the Unnamed. Sadly, she gets many things wrong because during the roughly 100 years since the Unnamed lived, much of her story has been ... changed (I guess that despite the journals it's much like the game "telephone"). Not to mention the differences that are natural due to the time that has passed and Etta having been brought up differently.
And that is exactly when Nowhere shows its real face with Etta's mother and others trying to emotionally pressure Etta into being a mother. They do this to others as well. Through Etta's eyes we see that relationships between women are frowned upon (being considered a waste) and that homosexuals in general are being treated badly (not invited to events, living secluded lives etc). And that is the "good" place here!
In general, I got the feeling that the people in this world were far more hard-nosed, with emotions either having been bred out of them or whatever. Of course it's OK to be tough because you need that to survive in such a world, but when you live in a relatively secure and "civilized" settlement but cannot even connect to the people you supposedly love? There is something wrong right there.
So Etta hits the road often and during her trips she encounters other people, like the Lion of Estiel (yes, he has lions and tigers as pets, I wonder if the author liked a certain character of The Walking Dead *lol*), and other settlements/cities. We get to see that the world is basically as desolate as it was in book 1, what with slave traders selling females (even toddlers), women being cut (genital mutilation being another important topic), women being used as sex toys and breeding machines, general abuse and lots of killings, not to mention no plumbing, general dirt and no creature comforts as is typical for any apocalyptic setting.
However, what was new was that there were also catamites and boys sometimes even getting orchidectomies (castrations). This is an interesting development, especially since through it the author explores gender identities even more thoroughly as in book 1.
I won't say any more about the developments further along because that would spoil too much.
What really got to me was the hypocrisy of the people. I know it's realistic. It already is a big problem nowadays so after the end of the world it can only get worse. Nevertheless, it got to me. Especially having seen what had become of Nowhere was hard because, silly as I am, I saw it as a beacon of hope for "normalcy". *lol* Instead, it's a place where people cannot be who they are, are repressed and get subdued in multiple ways, where one thing is said but not adhered to (like them despising slave traders but wanting to trade with the Lion because it's safer).
And the stupidity everywhere!
Like in Nowhere, which has been a fort in the beginning Or the fact that which was appalling (I am aware the author did that on purpose but that sort of thing never sat right with me). They even ban words there, censoring talk about abortions and other topics on top of having taboo subjects such as homosexuality.
But that was neither the only place where people were stupid nor the only thing people were stupid about - illiteracy was also a big problem. I get that for drifters and loners, but not for settlements and cities. Books are a commodity, a valuable thing to trade (like pretty much anything from the old world), but they deliberately only teach a few or nobody at all how to read. In some cases it can be a tool in order to control people (not a new concept) but especially in places like Jeff City I don't understand it because it is simply counter-productive! Then again, I didn't get their sheep mentality either ...
And don't get me started on places like Manhattan/Womanhattan and their silly rules like silence being a gift of the women or sons having to leave mothers aged 6 at the latest because the women "have more important stuff to do" while girls get to stay with their mothers.
If it wasn't so infuriating, I'd laugh.
It all sounded like a string of cults, one worse and more stupid than the one before, actually creepy (especially ), and I do admit that I actually liked how most of them got what they deserved for their lies and treachery (such as ). Sadly, *grinds teeth*
Funny was that I was right all along and *lol*
So this is a story about individuality, the repression of exactly that and the often complicated search/fight for who we are and being at peace with yourself in the end (sort of). There were a few other messages too and not all were to my liking (although I'm often unsure whether the author meant it literally or was being sarcastic).
The writing was again superb, the interactions between the characters fantastically and intelligently portrayed, and there were quite a few puzzles to solve. There are lots of conflicts as well, reality clashing with wishful thinking, narrowmindedness or even idealism (not to mention religion). Thus, despite my reservations (I often fear that a good book is ruined by its sequel - especially if I haven't known there will be a sequel as in this case) the book was extremely good. The way people were thinking (all of them) was too alien to me so I didn't care too much about individuals in the beginning but that changed simply because I couldn't stand the status quo after a certain point. And the author again managed to build a wonderful (realistic) world that I did care for, telling a deep if unsettling story, all of which sucked me into the book and kept me captivated.
Thus, I recommend this book to anyone who likes an intelligent story, with an exploration of deep and important topics, that is well-written and has realistic characters (and yes, I'll nominate it for a HUGO in 2018).
And now excuse me please, I'll have to go and shout my lungs out in frustration because of what happened in the end.
September 4, 2024
Nie ukrywam, że obawiałam się sięgnąć po drugi tom tej trylogii - „Księga bezimiennej akuszerki” mogłaby być znakomitą jednotomówką i nie potrzebowała kontynuacji. Jednak przez tę książkę również się płynie, choć pozostawia więcej pytań niż odpowiedzi. Przesiąknięta cierpieniem i okrucieństwem, ukazuje świat kilka pokoleń po Bezimiennej. Niestety w Polsce nie ukazał się już trzeci tom, więc będę zmuszona kontynuować lekturę po angielsku.
February 24, 2017
Thank you 47North and NetGalley for providing me this copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is hands down the best book I have read this years, so there was a lot of pressure for this sequel. I am so happy to say that it did not disappoint, despite focusing on a new character (Etta), the story and the world remained just as compelling. The only think that it missed was the urgency of the first book, The Book of Etta had some of the trademark moments of pure madness, when I was literally on the edge of my seat, of the first book, but not as many. But it’s the writing and how the author used it convey ideas that really stick with you that got me hooked. All that is present in the sequel as well, I would probably even venture to say that the writing got better.
The Book of Etta, just as the previous novel, is still a feminist book at its core, continuing the theme of discrimination and how it would affect women in a world where they are not only a rarity, but also the most precious currency that there is. This time, a lot of focus is put on sexuality and gender, and the author has a lot to say about it and the setting of this novels is just perfect for that.
There’s also a main conflict, this time we have a big bad wolf, or should I call him a big bad Lion? Most of the men in this series are viewed as villains because of the way they treat women and even other men, but it’s the first time that we have a villain that has the resources and men power to really impact the world this women, and our main character live in. From the moment she met him, it was obvious for Etta that he must go, and from then forward the book focused on finding ways to stop him.
Along her journey Etta finds all kinds of communities, all unique and having their own traditions and all of them treating women differently. The strangest community was one that was governed by a Prophet that really seems to be having some sort of supernatural powers and I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about this, as so far the series had no sign of something mystical going on, everything that happened in the story could be explained scientifically. There is still one more book to come, so I’m going to wait for that to come out, with hopefully more answers, before I draw to conclusions too fast.
Overall, this had all I wanted from a sequel. I still think that The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is better, but there was no way a sequel could have matched the intensity of that.
4,5 stars, rounded to 5 because I don’t feel okay with the idea of giving it only 4 stars.
The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is hands down the best book I have read this years, so there was a lot of pressure for this sequel. I am so happy to say that it did not disappoint, despite focusing on a new character (Etta), the story and the world remained just as compelling. The only think that it missed was the urgency of the first book, The Book of Etta had some of the trademark moments of pure madness, when I was literally on the edge of my seat, of the first book, but not as many. But it’s the writing and how the author used it convey ideas that really stick with you that got me hooked. All that is present in the sequel as well, I would probably even venture to say that the writing got better.
I think that when it changed, she was ready. I think that in the old world, women were slaves. Maybe not like they are now, but somebody needed that vest. Somebody needed her pills or her rings to keep from getting pregnant. Maybe slavery just looked nicer back then.
The Book of Etta, just as the previous novel, is still a feminist book at its core, continuing the theme of discrimination and how it would affect women in a world where they are not only a rarity, but also the most precious currency that there is. This time, a lot of focus is put on sexuality and gender, and the author has a lot to say about it and the setting of this novels is just perfect for that.
There’s also a main conflict, this time we have a big bad wolf, or should I call him a big bad Lion? Most of the men in this series are viewed as villains because of the way they treat women and even other men, but it’s the first time that we have a villain that has the resources and men power to really impact the world this women, and our main character live in. From the moment she met him, it was obvious for Etta that he must go, and from then forward the book focused on finding ways to stop him.
Along her journey Etta finds all kinds of communities, all unique and having their own traditions and all of them treating women differently. The strangest community was one that was governed by a Prophet that really seems to be having some sort of supernatural powers and I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about this, as so far the series had no sign of something mystical going on, everything that happened in the story could be explained scientifically. There is still one more book to come, so I’m going to wait for that to come out, with hopefully more answers, before I draw to conclusions too fast.
Overall, this had all I wanted from a sequel. I still think that The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is better, but there was no way a sequel could have matched the intensity of that.
4,5 stars, rounded to 5 because I don’t feel okay with the idea of giving it only 4 stars.
June 7, 2020
Really interesting world and themes, but definitely not as good as the first one in this series.
December 2, 2018
***Note: I received a copy curtesy of Netgalley and 47North in exchange for an honest review.
When I read The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, I thought it was a perfect book all by itself, with no need whatsoever of a sequel. However, after reading The Book of Etta, I think this brought more insight to the world's status after the plague/fever and humankind's different ways to reorganize and carry on.
The novel is written in third person, following the thoughts and actions of Etta (I really really liked the Etta/Eddy thing!), the people she meets, the ways the society adapted to the aftermaths of the plague (matriarchal / sexual subjugation, rotation of seed donors, hives, men who can claim paternity and men who aren't allowed, even monogamy in some rare cases).
The focus is on sexuality and gender issues, the novel being more of an identity quest than a survival one, oriented mainly towards world building, experiences and feelings rather than on the action itself.
Most of the handled topics are rather sensitive, but this is not a book for the faint-hearted, just like The Book of the Unnamed Midwife wasn’t either: gender roles, discrimination, sexuality and transgender issues, (gang) rape (of women, but also men), pedophily, sexual slavery, sequestration, beating, famine.
The only thing I didn’t like was that, even though the religion subject is barely touched upon throughout the book, towards the end some kind of supranatural Mormonism appears. Hopefully, the next and last (?) novel in the series won’t go on the slippery slope of mysticism..
Overall, a very good book, superbly written - an interesting and fast read, that I heartily recommend.
P.S. I enjoyed the distorted names of old cities and geographical landmarks (Estiel = STL => St. Louis, Misery = Missouri river, Womanhattan = women's region of Manhattan :D)
When I read The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, I thought it was a perfect book all by itself, with no need whatsoever of a sequel. However, after reading The Book of Etta, I think this brought more insight to the world's status after the plague/fever and humankind's different ways to reorganize and carry on.
The Unnamed was Etta’s hero. Not as a Midwife, but as a survivor, a person who could be anything they had to be to survive.The Book of Etta follows on the the events of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, some 100 years after humanity has been almost wiped out by a plague (~2% of the population remaining, of which 90% men and only 10% women; also, most women die in childbirth, with stillborns, even more often if the fetus is a girl). So there’s little wonder that most of the few remaining women have a very hard time getting by and must find ingenious ways to escape some very painful and degrading experiences. This is not a pleasant world to read about, on the contrary, but it’s a very real possibility for the presented circumstances, and that's what makes the book great.
The novel is written in third person, following the thoughts and actions of Etta (I really really liked the Etta/Eddy thing!), the people she meets, the ways the society adapted to the aftermaths of the plague (matriarchal / sexual subjugation, rotation of seed donors, hives, men who can claim paternity and men who aren't allowed, even monogamy in some rare cases).
The focus is on sexuality and gender issues, the novel being more of an identity quest than a survival one, oriented mainly towards world building, experiences and feelings rather than on the action itself.
Most of the handled topics are rather sensitive, but this is not a book for the faint-hearted, just like The Book of the Unnamed Midwife wasn’t either: gender roles, discrimination, sexuality and transgender issues, (gang) rape (of women, but also men), pedophily, sexual slavery, sequestration, beating, famine.
It was always old women who did the cutting on girls who were too small to fight. Men did the trading, the buying and selling. Every camp seemed to have an old woman who knew the anatomy well enough to condition a girl but not to ruin her. Eddy understood what men were, and how they lived and died selling girls just like this one. He did not, never could, understand the old women who helped them do it. He raised the machete, ready to split her skull in two.The characters are well written and humanized and the interactions between them are skillfully done. I especially liked that the main one was realistic and coolheaded and capable, but not too much so, also having not-so-good moments and being vulnerable and disheartened.
The only thing I didn’t like was that, even though the religion subject is barely touched upon throughout the book, towards the end some kind of supranatural Mormonism appears. Hopefully, the next and last (?) novel in the series won’t go on the slippery slope of mysticism..
Overall, a very good book, superbly written - an interesting and fast read, that I heartily recommend.
He looked at the stalagmites, remembering when Ricardo had taught him the word. The way they reached up with all their might, while the stalactites that hung down hung on tight. He had known, even then, that inside every man and woman there was a place like this, made of stone that changed slowly, shaped by the trickling of what they saw, heard, did.Tags: dystopia, female-lead, feminism, sexuality
P.S. I enjoyed the distorted names of old cities and geographical landmarks (Estiel = STL => St. Louis, Misery = Missouri river, Womanhattan = women's region of Manhattan :D)
January 23, 2018
Make me. I was made. I made me.
Wow. Just wow. What a great book. Deliverance meets Priscilla, Queen of the Desert meets Mad Max meets the end of the world. This deserves every price and award it gets nominated for. I was unsure if I even wanted to read this, after liking Unnamed Midwife so much. But this is probably even better.
The different towns with their varied societies, how fascinating. Awesome world building. There are so many plot bunnies for so many books here. So imaginative.
And horrible. At some points of the story I did not want to continue reading, because I dreaded what was coming next. The plot is like a train crash.
Loved the genderqueerness. Nonjudgmental exploration of what is or can be. Nice. The interactions between Flora and Eddy were great.
And then the so often stupid rules so many of the people in this book feel obliged to follow. Apparently we never learn. We just find new and different ways of screwing it up.
Not sure, what to make of the seemingly supernatural character towards the end. A little too surreal. The only part of the novel that I did not like and that probably has the potential to ruin the book for some people. But, besides that, I thought this book was bloody brilliant. Loved it.
“I give birth to guns. I bleed bullets. I was born to destroy men. Like you.”
Wow. Just wow. What a great book. Deliverance meets Priscilla, Queen of the Desert meets Mad Max meets the end of the world. This deserves every price and award it gets nominated for. I was unsure if I even wanted to read this, after liking Unnamed Midwife so much. But this is probably even better.
The different towns with their varied societies, how fascinating. Awesome world building. There are so many plot bunnies for so many books here. So imaginative.
And horrible. At some points of the story I did not want to continue reading, because I dreaded what was coming next. The plot is like a train crash.
Loved the genderqueerness. Nonjudgmental exploration of what is or can be. Nice. The interactions between Flora and Eddy were great.
And then the so often stupid rules so many of the people in this book feel obliged to follow. Apparently we never learn. We just find new and different ways of screwing it up.
Not sure, what to make of the seemingly supernatural character towards the end. A little too surreal. The only part of the novel that I did not like and that probably has the potential to ruin the book for some people. But, besides that, I thought this book was bloody brilliant. Loved it.
“I give birth to guns. I bleed bullets. I was born to destroy men. Like you.”
July 21, 2019
July 2019:
Wow! Again... Just WOW!
July 2018:
“The Unnamed was Etta’s hero. Not as a Midwife, but as a survivor, a person who could be anything they had to be to survive.”
A fantastic sequel to The Book of the Unnamed Midwife !
What a dark, exhilarating journey this series proved to be, one where nobody and nothing is ever safe and you don’t know where you’ll end up in this new terrifying world. I wasn’t expecting to like it this much, and Etta/Eddy is one of the most fascinating characters I’ve encountered in a long while, even if they can be both utterly frustrating and incredibly moving.
“The smell of men is the smell of danger…
The smell of women is the smell of home.”
Wow! Again... Just WOW!
July 2018:
“The Unnamed was Etta’s hero. Not as a Midwife, but as a survivor, a person who could be anything they had to be to survive.”
A fantastic sequel to The Book of the Unnamed Midwife !
What a dark, exhilarating journey this series proved to be, one where nobody and nothing is ever safe and you don’t know where you’ll end up in this new terrifying world. I wasn’t expecting to like it this much, and Etta/Eddy is one of the most fascinating characters I’ve encountered in a long while, even if they can be both utterly frustrating and incredibly moving.
“The smell of men is the smell of danger…
The smell of women is the smell of home.”
did-not-finish
March 21, 2017Well, I'm disappointed to abandon this one, and may give it another try a little later. But I grow weary of dystopian novels that descend into people wandering a bleak landscape, avoiding violence, trading with questionable communities, and making bizarre reproduction decisions.
February 1, 2018
I feel a bit ambivalent about my rating. I wasn't completely thrilled with the first half of the book, but I liked the second half better. All of it was pretty depressing and intense, but not as satisfying as I would have liked. The ending was pretty great though.
August 15, 2023
I really really liked this 2nd book but it was not as good as the first one. Now on to the third book! 🩶
February 2, 2017
Perfectly decent and absolutely unnecessary sequel in what is a planned trilogy set in the world first introduced to us in The Book of Unknown Midwife, a world where women became scarce and childbirth an almost always fatal proposition. Now some time has passed, there are somewhat more women, childbirth has become more plausible, survivors have established themselves in communities. In one of the surviving colonies Unknown Wife's words are taken seriously, especially by a young raider Eddy, also Etta. Yes, it's that sort of gender potpourri complete with Crying Game style revelations. It's almost as if the author decided to take this unevenly balanced new world and use it as a backdrop to explore gender identity and sexuality. It's actually quite fascinating, especially when considering that it is now the matriarchs that can be oppressive, repressive and controlling, the roles men have historically take up with such enthusiasm. To behold a woman led society where, for example, lesbianism or transgederism is frowned upon, because women should make themselves available to breed (despite all the dangers that go along with breeding) is disturbing. Of course, there are different colonies and one of the main strengths of this book is the variety of moralities and social structures that reassert themselves after the global collapse. Yet this is a much different book from its predecessor thematically, much more of an identity quest. With many more rash, impulsive decisions by characters one has to remind themselves are essentially very young. Eddy/Etta is charismatic enough of a heroine, strong, very inflexibly moralistic, though her inner life is occasionally overwritten. Ironically so, because as a diarist Eddy/Etta doesn't put down much in her book at all. There is plenty of action and violence, but this is essentially a very gynocentric novel with all the concordant concentrations, although not a chicklit at all. It's quite dark, rapey and brutal. But not hopeless. And it does leave one somewhat interested to see how it all plays out. Elison is a talented writer, the book reads fast and entertains plenty. Thanks Netgalley.
February 4, 2017
The Book of Etta is the second book in the Road to Nowhere series. It picks up about a hundred years after The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. You MUST read that first before moving on to TBOE or you won’t understand what’s happening or why.
TBOT Unnamed Midwife was a very realistic and brutal outlook on the aftermath of a plague apocalypse where the bulk of the world’s population died leaving one woman for every ten men. I couldn’t wait to dive into this one to see what that led to. It could really go one of two ways in general. The first that educated and thinking people would come together, create a new society and work on building back the population. The second is that men devolve back to their base instincts of caveman sexuality where you club any woman you find and drag her back to your cave. We ended up with a mix of both but with a heavier dose of the latter.
Meg Elison did a good job with the sexual aspects of this new world. With the men to women ratios being what they are, things had to change from the old world. Many of the hang ups of today’s society were overcome with things morphing into situations altogether different but every arrangement seems to be overlooked, tolerated or celebrated. There didn’t seem to be any hostility towards anyone because of their sexual orientation.
On the other hand, I think she did a not-so-good job with the religious aspects. TBOE takes place in Missouri where half the current residents are religious. The largest segment are Catholic. In times of immense crisis, such as a biological plague, people tend to veer towards religion. In this world, there seems to be almost no religion at all with the exception of one group of Mormons. They play a major part in this story but a group of Mormons also played a big part in TBOT UnnamedMidwife.
I was absolutely glued for about three quarters of the book but then something happened. I won’t give any specific details away but the author added a supernatural aspect to the story which frankly left me cold. All realism was thrown out the door. I like my fantasy as much as the next guy but you don’t throw Hermione Granger into the middle of The Handmaid’s Tale and expect anyone to take it seriously and this was how I was left feeling.
I’m not sure what direction this series is headed. Hopefully Elison will go back to the basics with the third installment. I’m still interested in this world and TBOE didn’t put me completely off, but if we end up with a third book full of super-Mormons taking over the planet, righting all the wrongs of the rest of society, I may have to re-write my previous review and this one.
Thanks to 47North for providing me a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for review.
TBOT Unnamed Midwife was a very realistic and brutal outlook on the aftermath of a plague apocalypse where the bulk of the world’s population died leaving one woman for every ten men. I couldn’t wait to dive into this one to see what that led to. It could really go one of two ways in general. The first that educated and thinking people would come together, create a new society and work on building back the population. The second is that men devolve back to their base instincts of caveman sexuality where you club any woman you find and drag her back to your cave. We ended up with a mix of both but with a heavier dose of the latter.
Meg Elison did a good job with the sexual aspects of this new world. With the men to women ratios being what they are, things had to change from the old world. Many of the hang ups of today’s society were overcome with things morphing into situations altogether different but every arrangement seems to be overlooked, tolerated or celebrated. There didn’t seem to be any hostility towards anyone because of their sexual orientation.
On the other hand, I think she did a not-so-good job with the religious aspects. TBOE takes place in Missouri where half the current residents are religious. The largest segment are Catholic. In times of immense crisis, such as a biological plague, people tend to veer towards religion. In this world, there seems to be almost no religion at all with the exception of one group of Mormons. They play a major part in this story but a group of Mormons also played a big part in TBOT UnnamedMidwife.
I was absolutely glued for about three quarters of the book but then something happened. I won’t give any specific details away but the author added a supernatural aspect to the story which frankly left me cold. All realism was thrown out the door. I like my fantasy as much as the next guy but you don’t throw Hermione Granger into the middle of The Handmaid’s Tale and expect anyone to take it seriously and this was how I was left feeling.
I’m not sure what direction this series is headed. Hopefully Elison will go back to the basics with the third installment. I’m still interested in this world and TBOE didn’t put me completely off, but if we end up with a third book full of super-Mormons taking over the planet, righting all the wrongs of the rest of society, I may have to re-write my previous review and this one.
Thanks to 47North for providing me a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for review.
August 29, 2021
4 Stars - The post apocalypse sucks if you are a woman, especially if you are queer.
Giving it 4 stars even though I did not really enjoy this book. My problem was that I did not connect with Etta/Eddie. They were so mad all the time, it was exhausting. And, yes, they had every right to be pissed but there was no moment of where the character ever felt safe, even when they were in a place that was safe they either would not believe it was safe or be unhappy/angry while there. At least in the first book there were some breaks and it ended on a hopeful note. But in this book our MC's life sucked from start to finish and the ending was, ugh, really hard to read.
I may or may not move on to the next book but I need a break first.
Giving it 4 stars even though I did not really enjoy this book. My problem was that I did not connect with Etta/Eddie. They were so mad all the time, it was exhausting. And, yes, they had every right to be pissed but there was no moment of where the character ever felt safe, even when they were in a place that was safe they either would not believe it was safe or be unhappy/angry while there. At least in the first book there were some breaks and it ended on a hopeful note. But in this book our MC's life sucked from start to finish and the ending was, ugh, really hard to read.
I may or may not move on to the next book but I need a break first.
July 28, 2017
My suggestion: read BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE and stop there. As much as I loved MIDWIFE, I disliked this sequel in equal measure, and abandoned it half-way through. Far too much emphasis placed on the protagonist's sexual orientation, at the expense of the overall story.
March 31, 2019
3.5 stars again, though I'm very much still mulling this one over.
The book of Etta picks up where The Book of the Unnamed Midwife left off - the town of Nowhere, years after an illness swept through the United States and turned life as we knew it upside down. We don't go between times in this book, though there are journal entries - and thank goodness the font they used last time is only used for headings this time. My eyes are eternally grateful.
I've got such mixed feelings about this book. Etta is a much more compelling character, at least to begin with, and a deeper look into the society that's risen from America's ashes was exactly what I wanted. But the timing is still off - some of the changes felt too quick, like the newly-christened Estiel. Linguistic drift can happen relatively quickly, but it was so inconsistent. And though it's been at least 50 - 75 years since the final entry in the journal, only now does
The gender dynamics continue to leave a bit to be desired, too. There's plenty of oppression to go round, but not one example of a community where people are genuinely living as equals, or with respect. As depressing as the news cycles can be, I know enough people in the real world to know that decent people are actually the quiet majority. Dictators will be overthrown, warlords fall in battle, and slavers will always find there's only so far you can push before revolt. But a stable society, built by boring, dependable, easy-going people - that really does work. Especially in a world where you have to attract as many of the relatively few people remaining as possible.
I can see how that wouldn't exactly make for exciting plotlines, though, and I felt like this was a much more gripping book than the last. Etta really does make for a compelling character, and the balancing act between her and Eddy never felt anything other than authentic. The unexpected plot development towards the end of the book were interesting as well, and I'm definitely intrigued to see where that goes with book 3.
The book of Etta picks up where The Book of the Unnamed Midwife left off - the town of Nowhere, years after an illness swept through the United States and turned life as we knew it upside down. We don't go between times in this book, though there are journal entries - and thank goodness the font they used last time is only used for headings this time. My eyes are eternally grateful.
I've got such mixed feelings about this book. Etta is a much more compelling character, at least to begin with, and a deeper look into the society that's risen from America's ashes was exactly what I wanted. But the timing is still off - some of the changes felt too quick, like the newly-christened Estiel. Linguistic drift can happen relatively quickly, but it was so inconsistent. And though it's been at least 50 - 75 years since the final entry in the journal, only now does
The gender dynamics continue to leave a bit to be desired, too. There's plenty of oppression to go round, but not one example of a community where people are genuinely living as equals, or with respect. As depressing as the news cycles can be, I know enough people in the real world to know that decent people are actually the quiet majority. Dictators will be overthrown, warlords fall in battle, and slavers will always find there's only so far you can push before revolt. But a stable society, built by boring, dependable, easy-going people - that really does work. Especially in a world where you have to attract as many of the relatively few people remaining as possible.
I can see how that wouldn't exactly make for exciting plotlines, though, and I felt like this was a much more gripping book than the last. Etta really does make for a compelling character, and the balancing act between her and Eddy never felt anything other than authentic. The unexpected plot development towards the end of the book were interesting as well, and I'm definitely intrigued to see where that goes with book 3.
April 23, 2021
I absolutely loved Book One of this series, the Audible version narrated by the incredibly talented Angela Dawe, so I jumped right into an audio version of Book Two, hoping for something just as dark, insightful and raw. I can't say that this book held the same awe with me, but I think most of the issue was the narration of the audiobook. I can't put my finger on it, but the reading was just...off. The accents were terrible, and there were a bunch of mispronunciations (e.g. "pe-rif-ee-uhl" for peripheral). Moving on to Book Three, but with significantly lowered standards.
September 28, 2018
I read The Book of the Unnamed Midwife earlier this year and found it gritty and compelling. I'm a real dystopian fiction nut and my reader's kink (or one of them) is world's ending. Seriously from The Stand to Watership Down, if the whole world is going to shit, I am in there like a greased weasel. The Book of Etta was equally compelling but I found it worked for me less well in terms of structure. I guess the diary entries weren't desperately necessary but I could overlook that. It was more the sudden explosion of pace at the end of the book whereby the denouement and wrap-up were covered in about 6% of the story, leaving no runway for readers to get off before the book ended. Perhaps Ellison was going for shock factor or perhaps she was leaving us thirsty for The Book of Flora (she totally did), but it didn't really work for me.
That said, this was still a fine piece of dystopian fiction. It's set approximately 100 yrs after the first book. Humans have formed small tin pot societies with no over arching governing structure. All of those societies are very different in how power is distributed and who holds the position of greatest importance. What I did find heartening is that women are not subjugated in all societies, nor is it a given that all men are bad. (For bad read 'rapists'). Ellison doesn't shy away from rape, misogyny, misandry, gender inequality or human sex trafficking (of both sexes) but it's not a given that women are less able and less powerful and that therefore it's a sexist old world again. I really appreciated that because it rang far truer that the idea that suddenly all men are rapists unable to control themselves and seeing women only as breeding stock.
Etta is a resident of Nowhere, the town to which the Unnamed went after her time on the road. Nowhere has changed since then however. Mothers are all but worshipped and Midwives hold the highest positions of respect. Below them are craftsmen and teachers. Women hold the most power, especially if they have successfully reproduced. The numbers are still woefully low though, with many girl children dying in infancy and women in childbirth. With a 1:10 ratio of women to men, many women have 'hives' of men who look after her house, do menial work and of course for reproductive reasons. On the surface this seems to be an equitable solution but Nowhere is very repressive in other ways. If all you can be as a woman is a mother or a midwife, if you are not free to be your true gender or to love the same sex, just how free are you? Etta dares disapproval from her people and spends long periods of time on the road, fulfilling her self imposed mission to free enslaved women and girls (and kill the slavers.) This leads her into the path of several other communities set up in completely different ways. No spoilers but the Book of Etta really meditates on personal freedom, the rights of the individual versus the needs of the many, whether there is ever a solution other than violence against those willing to use violence to achieve their ends, and what gender really means. This is no light dystopian romp, that's for sure, and at times is very tough reading. It's beautifully written, occasionally almost lyrical, and still easily accessible.
I did have some minor niggles - why hasn't the fever mutated for instance? Why are we not seeing a decline in infant and post natal mortality after a long enough period for some resistance to have entered the population? But aside from that and the slightly rushed feel to the ending, this was a good book. I can't wait for the third one in the series.
Buddy read with Melanie
That said, this was still a fine piece of dystopian fiction. It's set approximately 100 yrs after the first book. Humans have formed small tin pot societies with no over arching governing structure. All of those societies are very different in how power is distributed and who holds the position of greatest importance. What I did find heartening is that women are not subjugated in all societies, nor is it a given that all men are bad. (For bad read 'rapists'). Ellison doesn't shy away from rape, misogyny, misandry, gender inequality or human sex trafficking (of both sexes) but it's not a given that women are less able and less powerful and that therefore it's a sexist old world again. I really appreciated that because it rang far truer that the idea that suddenly all men are rapists unable to control themselves and seeing women only as breeding stock.
Etta is a resident of Nowhere, the town to which the Unnamed went after her time on the road. Nowhere has changed since then however. Mothers are all but worshipped and Midwives hold the highest positions of respect. Below them are craftsmen and teachers. Women hold the most power, especially if they have successfully reproduced. The numbers are still woefully low though, with many girl children dying in infancy and women in childbirth. With a 1:10 ratio of women to men, many women have 'hives' of men who look after her house, do menial work and of course for reproductive reasons. On the surface this seems to be an equitable solution but Nowhere is very repressive in other ways. If all you can be as a woman is a mother or a midwife, if you are not free to be your true gender or to love the same sex, just how free are you? Etta dares disapproval from her people and spends long periods of time on the road, fulfilling her self imposed mission to free enslaved women and girls (and kill the slavers.) This leads her into the path of several other communities set up in completely different ways. No spoilers but the Book of Etta really meditates on personal freedom, the rights of the individual versus the needs of the many, whether there is ever a solution other than violence against those willing to use violence to achieve their ends, and what gender really means. This is no light dystopian romp, that's for sure, and at times is very tough reading. It's beautifully written, occasionally almost lyrical, and still easily accessible.
I did have some minor niggles - why hasn't the fever mutated for instance? Why are we not seeing a decline in infant and post natal mortality after a long enough period for some resistance to have entered the population? But aside from that and the slightly rushed feel to the ending, this was a good book. I can't wait for the third one in the series.
Buddy read with Melanie
March 17, 2017
I loved The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. It was raw and unfiltered, uniquely exploring the issue of female reproductive rights in the middle of an apocalypse. I loved it so much that after reviewing it on my blog I suggested the book to Kirstyn for The Writer and the Critic podcast. I then applauded when it deservedly won the Philip K. Dick award and added volume to that cheer when a mainstream publisher bought the first novel (originally released by an indie press) and contracted author Meg Elison to write a second book in the same world. Well… to be absolutely honest, I was hoping the Unnamed Midwife would be a standalone story. Still, when The Book of Etta was announced I pre-ordered it immediately because reservations aside I was curious to see how Elison would develop her world.
The Book of Etta is set one hundred years or so after the events of Midwife. The community that the midwife forms at the end of the first book has grown, slowly, with only one or two viable births a year. Known as "Nowhere" (a possible riff on the literal translation of utopia)* the small colony has adopted a hive structure where a single women is tended to by a group of men. Unsurprisingly, and given the context of a world where human extinction is a real possibility, the matriarchy places great significance on reproduction. Healthy women are expected to fall pregnant even though it might be a death sentence. Cue Etta. She’s less interested in procreation and more interested in saving the lives of women who – outside of Nowhere – are being captured, abused and exploited by men. Inspired by the unnamed midwife (a totemic figure for the community of Nowhere) she spends most of her time outside the colony, searching and raiding for items of value and more importantly freeing enslaved women. Like the Unnamed Midwife, Etta disguises her biology, dressing as a man. It's more than just a façade though. When on the road, facing violent men, Etta becomes Eddy and is identified as a "he". As Eddy she becomes increasingly aware of the Lion, the ruler of Estiel (you know it as St Louis) and his harem of opium addled women.
On the surface, The Book of Etta is more conventional and straightforward than its predecessor. Where the Unnamed Midwife was told in first person (diary entries) but also jumped to an omniscient third person as part of a framing story, The Book of Etta is a third person narrative from first to last page. And where the plot of Unnamed Midwife was shaggy and loose with no specific direction in mind (other than survival and spreading the message of birth control) The Book of Etta, with its introduction of the Lion (as evil a bastard as you're likely to meet) has a far tighter and structured narrative – inevitably developing into a struggle between good and evil.
But that's on the surface. What makes The Book of Etta more than just a confrontation between Eddy / Etta and those who would continue to abuse and enslave women is the conversation of gender that’s threaded throughout the story. If The Book of the Unnamed Midwife was distinctive for dealing with reproductive rights in the aftermath of an apocalypse, The Book of Etta is unique for exploring gender identity while human civilisation is on the wane. "Eddy" isn't just an escape hatch, a personae that allows Etta to forget or ignore what's expected of her back home, he's also the gender that Etta finds she identifies with the most. But more then just a discussion about what it is to be trans in a world where day to day survival is not a given, Elison highlights the instinctive prejudice that results for a society where biology has greater priority than gender. Etta / Eddy who should be sympathetic to others like her is, in fact, the opposite. When Eddy finds himself attracted to Flora who presents as a woman but has the biology of a man, she feels betrayed, angered that Flora hid who she truly was – as if the “Flora” persona was a disguise. Eddy's struggle to accept Flora as a mirror of his own circumstances leads Flora to observe:
“You [Eddy] didn’t see me because you think there are only two kinds of things in the world. Men and women. Good and evil. Slavers and rescuers. You’ve seen more of the world than I have, but you know less about it. There’s more in this world than you can even dream about, Eddy. You’re only not seeing it because you won’t.”
This tension between the binary and the fluid, between how we view ourselves and how we views others, is the true strength of the Book Etta. It’s a tension that expresses itself in the politics and power dynamics of this burgeoning world. Eddy / Etta can’t abide the thought of trading with slavers even if it means savings the lives of women. The leaders of Nowhere have a more nuanced take. And this opposition – the binary worldview of Eddy / Etta with the more fluid, complicated position of her friends and families – propels the last third of the narrative and provides for a gripping climax.
The Book of Etta is not as good as The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. But it’s like saying that chocolate ice-cream is not as good chocolate ice-cream with chocolate chips. If I had a reservation it was with the addition of mystical / vaguely supernatural element, specifically involving the Mormon community that Eddy / Etta encounters and the healing powers of their prophetess. It’s not uncommon for post-apocalyptic narratives to feature psychic or otherworldly powers… but I found it an uncomfortable fit in the world of Unnamed Midwife. Still, it's a minor quibble. This is a fantastic, insightful and complex discussion about gender identity and I eagerly await the third book in the trilogy.
*Yes, I know the literal translation is "no place" or "good place" depending on how you compound your syllables.
The Book of Etta is set one hundred years or so after the events of Midwife. The community that the midwife forms at the end of the first book has grown, slowly, with only one or two viable births a year. Known as "Nowhere" (a possible riff on the literal translation of utopia)* the small colony has adopted a hive structure where a single women is tended to by a group of men. Unsurprisingly, and given the context of a world where human extinction is a real possibility, the matriarchy places great significance on reproduction. Healthy women are expected to fall pregnant even though it might be a death sentence. Cue Etta. She’s less interested in procreation and more interested in saving the lives of women who – outside of Nowhere – are being captured, abused and exploited by men. Inspired by the unnamed midwife (a totemic figure for the community of Nowhere) she spends most of her time outside the colony, searching and raiding for items of value and more importantly freeing enslaved women. Like the Unnamed Midwife, Etta disguises her biology, dressing as a man. It's more than just a façade though. When on the road, facing violent men, Etta becomes Eddy and is identified as a "he". As Eddy she becomes increasingly aware of the Lion, the ruler of Estiel (you know it as St Louis) and his harem of opium addled women.
On the surface, The Book of Etta is more conventional and straightforward than its predecessor. Where the Unnamed Midwife was told in first person (diary entries) but also jumped to an omniscient third person as part of a framing story, The Book of Etta is a third person narrative from first to last page. And where the plot of Unnamed Midwife was shaggy and loose with no specific direction in mind (other than survival and spreading the message of birth control) The Book of Etta, with its introduction of the Lion (as evil a bastard as you're likely to meet) has a far tighter and structured narrative – inevitably developing into a struggle between good and evil.
But that's on the surface. What makes The Book of Etta more than just a confrontation between Eddy / Etta and those who would continue to abuse and enslave women is the conversation of gender that’s threaded throughout the story. If The Book of the Unnamed Midwife was distinctive for dealing with reproductive rights in the aftermath of an apocalypse, The Book of Etta is unique for exploring gender identity while human civilisation is on the wane. "Eddy" isn't just an escape hatch, a personae that allows Etta to forget or ignore what's expected of her back home, he's also the gender that Etta finds she identifies with the most. But more then just a discussion about what it is to be trans in a world where day to day survival is not a given, Elison highlights the instinctive prejudice that results for a society where biology has greater priority than gender. Etta / Eddy who should be sympathetic to others like her is, in fact, the opposite. When Eddy finds himself attracted to Flora who presents as a woman but has the biology of a man, she feels betrayed, angered that Flora hid who she truly was – as if the “Flora” persona was a disguise. Eddy's struggle to accept Flora as a mirror of his own circumstances leads Flora to observe:
“You [Eddy] didn’t see me because you think there are only two kinds of things in the world. Men and women. Good and evil. Slavers and rescuers. You’ve seen more of the world than I have, but you know less about it. There’s more in this world than you can even dream about, Eddy. You’re only not seeing it because you won’t.”
This tension between the binary and the fluid, between how we view ourselves and how we views others, is the true strength of the Book Etta. It’s a tension that expresses itself in the politics and power dynamics of this burgeoning world. Eddy / Etta can’t abide the thought of trading with slavers even if it means savings the lives of women. The leaders of Nowhere have a more nuanced take. And this opposition – the binary worldview of Eddy / Etta with the more fluid, complicated position of her friends and families – propels the last third of the narrative and provides for a gripping climax.
The Book of Etta is not as good as The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. But it’s like saying that chocolate ice-cream is not as good chocolate ice-cream with chocolate chips. If I had a reservation it was with the addition of mystical / vaguely supernatural element, specifically involving the Mormon community that Eddy / Etta encounters and the healing powers of their prophetess. It’s not uncommon for post-apocalyptic narratives to feature psychic or otherworldly powers… but I found it an uncomfortable fit in the world of Unnamed Midwife. Still, it's a minor quibble. This is a fantastic, insightful and complex discussion about gender identity and I eagerly await the third book in the trilogy.
*Yes, I know the literal translation is "no place" or "good place" depending on how you compound your syllables.
March 5, 2019
All right, at 65%, I'm done.
You can cut the balls off of as many little boys as you want (but don't), they're still not going to grow up to be women.
I can't even explain to you how offended I am that Meg Elison took an incredible story like The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, a story about a woman trying to survive the end of the world by *DRESSING UP AS A MAN BECAUSE IT WAS SAFER* and trying to help other women by providing midwifery services, including birth control, and then further explore the universe by insisting that lesbians are actually just men, men are women because not all women can give birth, and to double down on the exploitation and abuse of women and girls.
You'd think the author would see the irony in writing about the constant danger women and girls are in because of our sex and then acting like gender is still a measurable thing.
This is post-modern, pseudo-intellectual masturbation and it's fucking garbage.
Honestly, I should have trusted my instinct when the book literally opens on a scene of a little girl "providing service" to a man.
Add to that that the third book in the series is from the perspective of a man (who calls himself a woman because he's apparently trans?) named Flora and I'm tapping out entirely. Women can't even have our own post-apocalyptica. I'm so disappointed.
You can cut the balls off of as many little boys as you want (but don't), they're still not going to grow up to be women.
I can't even explain to you how offended I am that Meg Elison took an incredible story like The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, a story about a woman trying to survive the end of the world by *DRESSING UP AS A MAN BECAUSE IT WAS SAFER* and trying to help other women by providing midwifery services, including birth control, and then further explore the universe by insisting that lesbians are actually just men, men are women because not all women can give birth, and to double down on the exploitation and abuse of women and girls.
You'd think the author would see the irony in writing about the constant danger women and girls are in because of our sex and then acting like gender is still a measurable thing.
This is post-modern, pseudo-intellectual masturbation and it's fucking garbage.
Honestly, I should have trusted my instinct when the book literally opens on a scene of a little girl "providing service" to a man.
Add to that that the third book in the series is from the perspective of a man (who calls himself a woman because he's apparently trans?) named Flora and I'm tapping out entirely. Women can't even have our own post-apocalyptica. I'm so disappointed.
February 13, 2018
I think the author could benefit from the services of a trans sensitivity reader or beta reader. This felt really insulting to me, as a transgender reader, and counterintuitive to the author's apparent goals. The ending was completely at odds with the themes of the rest of the book and the previous novel.
July 5, 2017
This took a weird turn at about 75% and I'm still not sure it quite sure works for me. I'm not a super spiritual person so With that being said, I still think the author does a fantastic job creating this dirty and violent yet somehow supremely interesting post apocalyptic world. The characters are fascinating as is the way each group has grown their own ideologies and views on the nature of people and their place in this world.
Etta/Eddy was born in Nowhere and fated to be either a Mother or a Midwife because she was born female. What Etta really wanted was to be like the Unnamed. To become a raider who travels to scavange and rescue women in need. But something goes wrong one trip and Etta returns as a broken person. Etta/Eddy is so hurt, and so angry with the world. S/he became even more determined to be her own person, with her own ideas, and to protect those that she loves no matter what the cost.
This is the story of Etta, who is also Eddy, and how the two parts of this same person fits into this new world.
Etta/Eddy was born in Nowhere and fated to be either a Mother or a Midwife because she was born female. What Etta really wanted was to be like the Unnamed. To become a raider who travels to scavange and rescue women in need. But something goes wrong one trip and Etta returns as a broken person. Etta/Eddy is so hurt, and so angry with the world. S/he became even more determined to be her own person, with her own ideas, and to protect those that she loves no matter what the cost.
This is the story of Etta, who is also Eddy, and how the two parts of this same person fits into this new world.
May 30, 2019
A relatively quick, fast-paced read that felt like an appropriate sequel and next-in-the-series serial followup to The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, but ... for me ... not much more.
Unlike the first installment, my sense is - and I could be wrong - this one will rise or fall depending upon your openness to, experience with, and level of interest in LBGTQ issues and literature, so - forewarned is forearmed. In that context, I'm probably more partial to ... in the sci-fi, rather than pure dystopia realm - Becky Chambers' splendid (to my mind) Wayfarers trilogy (... or series), but, hey, that's just me.
While there were innumerable creative and thought-provoking aspects of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife that made it dystopia-worth-reading, my sense was it wasn't quite as literary or tightly crafted or, ultimately, well constructed, as, say, Station Eleven, ... and that's OK, because, as this book suggests, it was merely the launch of a serial. In retrospect, it has great serial potential - with the opportunity to focus on different characters, different epochs or time bands, different places, different communities/cultures, etc. So, particularly if you're looking for a new serial ... and I admit I'm a massive serial consumer, particularly when I'm travelling ... this has plenty of potential.
Unlike the first installment, my sense is - and I could be wrong - this one will rise or fall depending upon your openness to, experience with, and level of interest in LBGTQ issues and literature, so - forewarned is forearmed. In that context, I'm probably more partial to ... in the sci-fi, rather than pure dystopia realm - Becky Chambers' splendid (to my mind) Wayfarers trilogy (... or series), but, hey, that's just me.
While there were innumerable creative and thought-provoking aspects of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife that made it dystopia-worth-reading, my sense was it wasn't quite as literary or tightly crafted or, ultimately, well constructed, as, say, Station Eleven, ... and that's OK, because, as this book suggests, it was merely the launch of a serial. In retrospect, it has great serial potential - with the opportunity to focus on different characters, different epochs or time bands, different places, different communities/cultures, etc. So, particularly if you're looking for a new serial ... and I admit I'm a massive serial consumer, particularly when I'm travelling ... this has plenty of potential.
January 24, 2020
I’m already reading book 3. Can’t stop now. Review later - trust me. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS
I was going to wait until I finished the third book to write this review, but then I worried I would somehow meld parts of both in my mind, and this book definitely deserves its own spotlight.
In The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, the first book in Elison's Road to Nowhere series, the Unnamed is on a journey of survival. Along the way, in a hostile, dangerous world, she remakes or perhaps discovers her own identity. She makes her mark in a world that has been erased. In this book, the journey is one that focuses on identity and struggle. The survival piece is there as well, but it is just a thread in the larger tapestry of the narrative.
There is an important conversation here about gender identity and expectations. In a world in which women are treated as a commodity rather than people, it absolutely fits within the narrative. Elison tackles LGBT and transgender issues from both a larger view as well as through an intimate lens. To me, nothing is sacrificed in the sense of story; these issues blend seamlessly in a world that is desperately trying to find itself. Sounds familiar, I think.
I highly recommend this series and this second book is a strong installment. I've already started reading the final book. I cannot wait to see where Elison takes this next.
I was going to wait until I finished the third book to write this review, but then I worried I would somehow meld parts of both in my mind, and this book definitely deserves its own spotlight.
In The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, the first book in Elison's Road to Nowhere series, the Unnamed is on a journey of survival. Along the way, in a hostile, dangerous world, she remakes or perhaps discovers her own identity. She makes her mark in a world that has been erased. In this book, the journey is one that focuses on identity and struggle. The survival piece is there as well, but it is just a thread in the larger tapestry of the narrative.
There is an important conversation here about gender identity and expectations. In a world in which women are treated as a commodity rather than people, it absolutely fits within the narrative. Elison tackles LGBT and transgender issues from both a larger view as well as through an intimate lens. To me, nothing is sacrificed in the sense of story; these issues blend seamlessly in a world that is desperately trying to find itself. Sounds familiar, I think.
I highly recommend this series and this second book is a strong installment. I've already started reading the final book. I cannot wait to see where Elison takes this next.
June 1, 2019
I enjoyed Etta's story and all of the turmoil and danger that came with it. I'm looking forward to finishing out the series soon. Adenrele Ojo did an absolutely amazing job with the narration. I will be searching out more stories narrated by her.
Where you can find me:
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Twitter: @MonlatReader
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Facebook: Monica Reeds
Goodreads Group: The Black Bookcase
Where you can find me:
•(♥).•*Monlatable Book Reviews*•.(♥)•
Twitter: @MonlatReader
Instagram: @readermonica
Facebook: Monica Reeds
Goodreads Group: The Black Bookcase
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